Name Submission: Essmethallt.


Why?

A few things floated around my head when I saw this contest a few hours ago:  

  • This race is ethereal. It should flow without much resistance, and so should the name. No hard or sharp phonic sounds should be littered in the name. But, at the end of the day, the race does exist, so it should end with one (the 't' in this case).
  • The name should be an accumulation of languages in order to make it seem both natural and foreign. It should be both recognisable and unrecognisable at the same time, enough so that at one glance it seems normal and another it seems off.
  • Easy to read. By far, the most important! Not everyone who plays the game is going to read this post to understand the name, so at the very least it must be easy to speak.
  • This is a race of espionage. The name should be quiet in a sense. It must sound clear when both whispered and spoken loudly.

From this, I started gathering inspiration from English, Icelandic, Lithuanian, French and Gaelic. Five languages picked by-the-by really: Different enough to offer something creative and unique enough that they aren't commonly chosen as inspiration for naming things. I used Seven keywords that I felt described the race well and looked at their translations. 


Essence, Ethereal, Accumulation, Whisper, Flow, Nothing and Everything. 


Not all of them came out nicely, but there were many to take inspiration from. I ended up scrapping French and Gaelic as the words did not flow at all. What I ended up with wasn't really "out there", and that's what sold me on it!

My choices were: Essence, Esme (Lithuanian for Essence), Ethereal, Allt (Icelandic for everything) and Nothing. A simple mix up led me to   Essmethallt.  (Ess + Esme = Essm, + Eth + th = Essmeth, + Allt = Essmethallt.)


Pronunciation: Ess - Meh - Fall - T


It may seem like "Nothing" was not incorporated, but it was. I decided to blend the 'th' of nothing into the 'eth' of ethereal because nothing only exists in the context of everything else. It is not seen nor heard within the name, but it is there. It is an Ethereal name. It is an accumulation of words that flow like a whisper. It is the Essence of Everything and Nothing. And I love random philosophical statements!