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Writer's pictureMark Sanders

300 Writing Prompts: Day 1

Today's Random Prompt: What is the weirdest name you can come up with? If you had to give a character a really, really unusual name, what would you choose and what would it show about their personality?

I’m copycatting friend and fellow writer Jeff South this month in his Random Prompt of the Day writing project, but I’m obviously a day late getting started. Sorry about that, folks, but sometimes the day job just eats too much of your time.


My fantasy kingdom originated in the geography of Wales; I created provinces and cities based on the Welsh map, so the capital and the kingdom is called Llanfyllin (LAN-fill-in), and the attendant provinces are Wrexham (REX-um), Caernarvon (Cur-NAR-vun), Dollgellau (Doll-GETH-lee), Aberystwyth (A-BEAR-ist-with), Macnylleth (Mack-NIL-eth), Llandrinded (Lan-DRIN-ded), and Gwynedd (GWIN-eth).


Anyone familiar with Welsh will tell you these are NOT the correct pronunciations, and they would be correct. I’ve taken these Welsh names and Anglicized them for my purposes. I also changed world history and added magic and dragons, so there. It’s fiction, folks, so I’m not playing with the facts; I’m making them up to serve the story.


I’m on the verge of publishing the third novel in what has turned out to be a trilogy of Llanfyllin stories. This one is called “Siannon’s Promise” (it sounds like “Shannon”), and it’s a far-flung adventure that leaves our familiar Welsh kingdom and travels all over the medieval fantasy world of my imagination.


I created a lot of new characters for this one, many with unusual or strange names. Here are a few: Ioan, Szarvas, Van Leeuwen, Wilhelm Hasselbrock, Andrei Zugravescu, and Mohammed bin-Kadzim.


But far and away, the strangest names in this story are the dragons. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Baraxia Perditrix Meticulosa and her three children: Tugar-Khan Zmeyevitch, Kimse Sunrinden Kurdaren, and Akhenahu Menen Nerahu.


All these names were derived from names of legendary dragons from all over the world. As to their characters and actions, I encourage you to purchase and read “Siannon’s Promise” when it premieres later this month.

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