Making a Na'vi name (and maybe a bit of character building on the side)

[h0pebringer]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here and I'm learning how forums work again after not touching one in what feels like a millenium haha, but I needed help making a name for a character idea of mine I had after getting back into my younger me's hyperfixation of Avatar after Way of Water and Frontiers of Pandora came out (watched the movie and have spent a few all-nighters on the game  )

Long story short, there's no known word I can think of or find that roughly translates to 'ghost' or even 'mirage/illusion'.  The closest I found was 'tirea' which is a word for spirit iirc.  I wanted to go with a slightly spooky but harmless name, because of the fact that this character is a bit paler than usual (hence 'ghost'), and maybe having some sort of nickname regarding the fact that they're very good at disappearing and appearing out of nowhere (based off my own childhood experience of accidentally startling my parents and any other adult in my general vicinity by randomly showing up or disappearing the second they blink, lol) (safe to say, hence 'mirage/illusion').

If I could get some help with the name, or maybe some other language and/or name based things to help flesh them out more in a realistic (as realistic as giant blue aliens from a fairly older sci-fi movie can be I suppose lol) way, then that would be amazing. 

I can't promise I will respond instantly if I get a response, but I will make an attempt to check and respond as needed ^^

[Tirea Aean]

Kaltxì ma h0pebringer!

Hello and welcome to the LearnNa'vi forum

Interesting character concept

You're right that we currently lack knowledge of the Na'vi understading of spirits vs. souls (the 2 words we do have) vs. ghost (a word we don't yet have, or are not yet sure if it's different than tirea in some sense or another)

It looks like you're naming a Na'vi with aims to be realistic. In this case, the name will be made of pleasant-sounding valid syllables, and take the form of

female:
[first name] te [family name] [mother's name]'ite

male:
[first name] te [family name] [father's name]'itan

other (pending canonization):
[first name] te [family name] [parent's name]'itu

There's a name generator over at https://tirea.learnnavi.org/?p=generator and some other ones at https://fwew.app/names

because it's an arbitrary name for a Na'vi character, you could also strategically choose syllables from certain words such that there is some sense that the name could have a meaning behind it (which though this seems to not be common in the canon, it's still very common in fics and RPs)

Some words you may be interested in based on your request here might be...

- txewm (txewm) adj. scary, frightening
- snewsye (snew-sye) adj. weird, spooky
- lehrrap (le-hrr-ap) adj. dangerous
- tirea (ti-re-a) n. spirit
- vitra (vit-ra) n. soul
- tsleng (tsleng) adj. false
- rel (rel) n. image, picture
- seykxel (sey-kxel) adj. strong (emotionally, spiritually, not physical), confident
- ketsuktse'a (ke-tsuk-tse-'a) adj. invisible ("un-see-able")
- win (win) adj. fast
- neyn (neyn) adj. light colors, shades of white
- teyr (teyr) adj. white
- tìk (tìk) adv., conj. immediately, without delay
- 'ìp ('ìp, '..ìp) vin. disappear, vanish, recede from view
- srer (srer, sr..er) vin. appear, materialize, come into view

hmm

I hope this helps at least somewhat

[h0pebringer]

Thank you so much for the reply!  This definitely helps put how I want to form the name into perspective in a much more managable way ^^

If you end up seeing this again, I'd like to hear your (or anyone else's for that matter) opinion on some of these names I ended up putting together:

(For reference, I'll be using an apostraphe to split up individual words for the names and nicknames, as I'm unsure how to combine them otherwise while making them distinct at the same time)

Names:

- Teyr'tirea (white + spirit, referencing how ghosts and other spirits are typically shown as white or otherwise pale)
- Neyn'tirea (similar to above, but more along the lines of the 'pale' aspect rather than white)

Nicknames:

- Srer'ip (appear + disappear, referencing their habit of accidentally walking away or up to people without said person realizing until a bit later)
- Tsleng'rel (image + false, a makeshift form of the idea of the words mirage or illusion)

If anyone has any further ideas I'm more than happy to listen, and any feedback and/or opinions would be wonderful ^^

[Toliman]

Kaltxì ulte zola'u nìprrte

Spoiler

Hello and welcome

Nice ideas White spirit is possible to say as Tirea Ateyr which sounds great, I would say

[Tirea Aean]

Nice!

One thing to remember is that ' is a consonant letter/sound in Na'vi, in the same class as p, t, or k. It is never found sandwiched between 2 other consonants like in

- *Teyr'tirea
- *Neyn'tirea
- *Tsleng'rel

But

- Srer'ìp is fine, here the ' is between a consonant r and vowel ì


Those 1st three would have to be:

- Teyrtirea (Teyrea? )
- Neyntirea
- Tslengrel

Side-note: as valid phrases in conversation, these would be

- teyra tirea (or, tirea ateyr)
- neyna tirea (or, tirea aneyn)
- tslenga rel (or, rel atsleng)
- srer 'ìp


EDIT:

Kaltxì ulte zola'u nìprrte

nìprrte' ends with '
a commonly forgotten bit

[Toliman]

Those 1st three would have to be:

- Teyrtirea (Teyrea? )
- Neyntirea
- Tslengrel

Teyrea - eltur tìtxen si  

[h0pebringer]

Hey, got back around to replying finally!  Thank you both so much for the help with the name, I'm super excited to develop my dorky character even further now that I finally have the name down!

I ended up deciding on the character's first name being Teryrea like suggested, and having the nickname of Srer'ìp 

I can't wait to eventually get them developed enough to properly show, since I'd like to get all the stuff I can get down for them just right before I show a finalized character concept to people ^^ this character and their little story has been an on and off sideproject of mine for years by now lol, and I'm so excited to finally be able to spend some time fleshing them out properly.

[Toliman]

That is nice