The Practice of Naming

For a while, I had been naming my pets after food spices or toppings. I had a fiery pincer crab called Chipotle, a spotted leopard named Salt, a boar named Bacon, a green ravager named Pesto, etc.

Then I got some cozy names. I had a smiling T-Rex named Chuckles, a tanking turtle named Flash, a MC core-hound named Fluffy, a gorilla named Jason, and a hydra named Malcolm.

Because the changes in wolves almost remove the options of swapping in other pets in raids, I wanted to choose my wolf's name in some isolation. I knew he wouldn't really be part of a stable and naming scheme.

I'm a well-educated metropolitan dwarf. We dwarves fought the dire wolves of the Orcs and the wolf-riding Goblins. We didn't have our own. So I chose an old name from the Elves: Aranroth. It literally means "king" and "wolf" in Sindarin. Sindarin is one of two elvish tongues from Tolkien's LotR.

I have been a computer and fantasy geek for a while. Fifteen years ago, I made a web-based Elvish word generator. It's still running. I also have a whole bunch of systems specifically made for names for other races (e.g.- Dwarf names) and names of places (e.g.- names of highland strongholds). These are all generated on the fly.

I probably should put ads on the pages. 15 years of lost ad revenue might have bought me a cheeseburger.