Na'vi names

[Kätsyín te Zotxekay Tsyal’itan]

tskxetsamsiyu looks good.

If you want to play it safe you could go for letskxea tsamsiyu or tsamsiyu letskxe which both mean stony-warrior or as a third option tskxeyä tsamsiyu or tsamsiyu tskxeyä (warrior of stone), personally, I'd go for the compound (tskxetsamsiyu).

Well, since the grammar Na'zi has officially chimed in Tskxetsamsiyu and Hawnuyu it will be.

By the way, right after I posted this, the third egg hatched. Its an albino dragon.

[Ftiaronsem]

Kaltxi

Finally I want to start making up a Na'vi name too^^, which is why I need your help.
I thought about putting the words ftia (study) and ronsem (mind) together, since they describe my person best. I almost always want to know how the stuff surrounding me works, which is probably why I am going to study physiks^^. So my name should translate to something similar to "mind who studies". I have thought of:

f<ei>tia ronsem

however I am unsure of the position of <ei> and furthermore I am bit afraid, that it would rather translate as "studying a mind" (like a psychologist :-). So if you have any advice/suggestions of how this would be correct, I would be very happy to hear about it.

Irayo ma aytsmukan

[kewnya txamew'itan]

If you haven't already, I'd recommend that you read the na'vi in a nutshell guide, it explains all the grammar that we know quite well.

<ei> is a position 2 infix and goes before the vowel of the last syllable so it would be fti<ei>a.

The that that you are looking for here is a relative clause marker and is "a" so mind that studies would be "ronsem a ftieia" or "ftieia a ronsem".

Also, whilst it is clear that you want positive connotations with your name, it's easy to overuse <ei> and <äng>, in this case I'd say it wasn't necessary so I'd probably just say "ronsem a ftia".

Alternatively, you could compound it as study-mind which is probably closer to how names actually evolved, this would give you ftiaronsem (feel free to elide syllables if you want to shorten it).

oe sìlpey tsnì srung silvi ulte eywa ngahu

[Ftiaronsem]

Well, I started with the Na'vi in a nutshell guide, but haven`t really gotten far, yet^^. But I am working on it ;-)

Thanks for your help, thats really great. Ftiaronsem is probably the best choice here, I like it most^^.
So I have a name.

Irayo ma tsmukan

[Azrath87]

Hey everyone. I was wondering if you could help me. I choose "Strong Heart" for my name but I'm not sure how to put it together. Its Txur (Strong) Txe'lan (heart). If you could help that would be great.


Irayo ma tsumaktu.

[Niwantaw]

i do believe it would be Txura Txe'lan
but i'm not the best at na'vi
i'm one of the worst

[Carborundum]

i do believe it would be Txura Txe'lan
but i'm not the best at na'vi

Txura txe'lan is correct. Txe'lan atxur works too.

[MrGoodbytes]

I was just thinking about this and it seems to me (no rudeness or offense intended) that many people focus on making names that mean something in Na'vi.  THis is not alway neccessary.  not every name has a literal meaning.  I like the idea, but you dont HAVE to have a name that means something.  What do you guys think?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

I was just thinking about this and it seems to me (no rudeness or offense intended) that many people focus on making names that mean something in Na'vi.  THis is not alway neccessary.  not every name has a literal meaning.  I like the idea, but you dont HAVE to have a name that means something.  What do you guys think?

This has been brought up before but it's still interesting to debate.

I'd dispute that there are names that have no meaning. Every name I've been asked to translate I've been able to find an etymological meaning even if that meaning is no longer obvious or has been covered with centuries of connotations.

What we do here is translate that etymology. In order to obfuscate the meaning (and to bring the names down to a more manageable syllable number unlike my name) I encourage people to compound and elide syllables.

From this we go through the following progression:

James
Usurper
he who wrongly takes that of another
he who wrongly takes the home of another
mungeyu kelkuyä lapeyä
mungeyu kelkuyä
kelkumungeyu
kelkungeyu
kelkunge
kelkung

which is a reasonable number of syllables and has the meaning suitably obfuscated.

With my name I should really have gone like this:

Tristan
Tumult
Dischord
Not harmony
keme'em
kemem or ke'em or something.

Instead I chose to use Frommer's favourite word meoauniaea and, obfuscating the meaning of this we could go:

kemeoauniaea
kemeoawniaya
kemeawna
kemawna
kawma

which ends up being quite similar to one of my earlier names tìkawngä mungeyu (except without the mungeyu or tì-)

Also, it is important to bear in mind that these are forum names rather than necessarily real names to be used in person and so are more likely to mean something.

[Rikxyu]

Hmm... interesting. (Nice choice for an example, ma kemeoauniaea. There are at least 4 James on this board, plus myself!)

As for me, I took the translation of James as "Supplanter" which is close to "mover," then translated that into Na'vi and tada! Rikxyu! (Also, I just like the sound of "Rikxyu.")

So even if you want to use etymology for your name, you could end up with a completely different Na'vi name than someone else did who shares your native language name.

Not very insightful. Just a thought. 

[kewnya txamew'itan]

You could indeed end up with something completely different, but you get that even within languages, Jack and John both derive from Jonathon so share a common etymology but are completely (well not completely, they share an onset) different.

The main problem with it that is going to lead to inconsistencies is going to be mainly in the syllable elision stage of the name, when we do this we're having to simulate many centuries of language change within the same grammar and phonetic system (which will mess it up a bit) and without the name gradually changing, new norms won't be established and the names will diverge more.

[Kätsyín te Zotxekay Tsyal’itan]

I got one for you to come up with:
One who watches the stars, or something as close to that as you can get.

[Tsamsiyu92]

I got one for you to come up with:
One who watches the stars, or something as close to that as you can get.

One who watches the stars <=> watcher of stars

Ninyu Sanhìyä                or       Sanhìyä Nìnyu
Watch-er Star-PL-GEN   or        Star-PL-GEN watch-er

[kewnya txamew'itan]

I got one for you to come up with:
One who watches the stars, or something as close to that as you can get.

Tsamsiyu92 has given you a grammatically correct version but, following the obfuscating method I described above we'd go more like this:

starwatcher
tanhìnìn
tanìn

So, you can go for a less grammaticallty sound more name like tanìn or the grammatically perfect nìnyu sanhìyä/sanhiyä nìniyu

[Niwantaw]

reckon you could shorten mine to a name?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

fine, obfuscating tawtute akawng:

tawtute akawng
tawtutekawng
tawtekawng
tawng

or if that's a bit too short:

tawtute akawng
tawtutekawng
tawtekawng
tawtewng

[Niwantaw]

thanks *goes and tries to make his mind up over which he prefers*

[Sopyu]

ok I want to make sure I have my name correct. I love to walk and to run and basicly move around town. thier is no word for wanderer as far as I know. so I used travel. If I am correct I had to change it to sopyu to make it traverler but I would like to get someone who is good with the language to confirm this.
Irayo

[Vrrtak]

ok, I'm tryin' to make sure I have this right. I'm trying to translate my nickname, Alex, into Na'vi- would Älekxs be correct or not?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

ok I want to make sure I have my name correct. I love to walk and to run and basicly move around town. thier is no word for wanderer as far as I know. so I used travel. If I am correct I had to change it to sopyu to make it traverler but I would like to get someone who is good with the language to confirm this.
Irayo

Sopyu is correct for traveller.

ok, I'm tryin' to make sure I have this right. I'm trying to translate my nickname, Alex, into Na'vi- would Älekxs be correct or not?

No. For three reasons, one you have consonant cluster as a coda (which is illegal), a consonant cluster starting with a letter other than f, s or ts (which is illegal) and you end a syllable with an s (which is illegal).

Although to legalise it you just have to add a vowel on the end and it solves the problems, probably be i (so it is affectively Alexei).

Also, I thought I might as well translate your current username as well:

vrrteptakuk
vrrtakuk
vrrtak