I don't understand all the people in the comments of that fantasy naming LJ post saying 'yes, but I use Celtic naming conventions, therefore I am Doing My Part to not homogenize things'. Have they ever read any fantasy?
Hi there! The person who is talking about Celtic names (aberwyn is in fact one of the pioneers of Celtic fantasy, if that helps and was one of the first people to achieve international success with a Celtic-inspired series. (And I'm a Celticist by training. I don't write Celtic fantasy, however, as that is too much like Real Life Work.)
Actually, not that much -- the big explosion in Celtic fantasy was around then -- not just Kit, but Guy Gavriel Kay, Patricia Keneally Morrison, and various Arthur books (though most of those were more following the French tradition with a few famous Celts thrown in, ie The Mists of Avalon). Prior to that, I can only think of Evangeline Walton (and parts of Tolkien, but it was well-disguised) writing pure Celtic stuff. There were children's books but they were mostly either retellings of legends or set in a modern world with folkloric incursions (The Owl Service, for instance). I used to teach a course on this, for my sins. The success of these series (plus Mists of Avalon) fuelled a much bigger wave from c.1990. Which is, I have to say, about when I stopped reading the stuff, by and large, as it was getting more and more recursive, and more and more riddled with modern sensibilities and wish-fulfilment around religion, feminism, psychic powers and so on. I remember the first of Kit's novel's coming out, in fact, and it was very fresh and different -- the other Celtic stuff from around the same time was very much more Arthur influenced and less based on genuinely early materials. I'm a bit of a nerd about this, alas: being a Celtic historian, these books get mentioned to me a lot.
Well, The Dark is Rising, which is technically kids' fantasy, springs to mind, and then there's Marion Zimmer Bradley as referenced by both yourself and Erin. Mostly, see Erin's comment for my feelings on this. Celtic inspired naming conventions feel to me like the single most banal choice in fantasy fiction - moreso even than Germanic - so I found it comical that this was being cited in the comments (by multiple people, not just Kerr) as in some way 'different' or original - and I really don't care how long she's been doing it. That's all.
I'm sure they have - I just also find Celtic naming to be the go-to for many authors even if they aren't writing a specifically Celtic-themed novel.
On a side note - it seems to me that the rant is not actually about names, but about the basis in which fantasy novels are set. Too many focus on what is basically medieval Britain, with all the whitewashing and Euro-centricism that implies. I've read quite a few good blog posts on the subject from authors of color, and I agree that there does need to be more fantasy that involves characters of color and different backgrounds and inspirations. I just don't particularly find the Celts to be that unused as inspiration nowadays. People like Marion Zimmer Bradley have been tapping that source since the 70s to good effect.
You are sadly all too right about the lazy tendency for writers to use Celtic materials as 'different' in naming conventions. It irritates the hell out of me. The starting point for that rant was a comment that 'bad' fantasy names are polysyllabic and that this latter is unrealistic. I thought about that for a while and came to the conclusion that it's not in fact true -- lots of cultures use polysyllabic names routinely, but the (Americanised) West doesn't do so as much. Hence the rant. You are absolutely right about the Eurocentricity. I really don't like books which are Europe-with-fantasy-names (Francika, Germanoria, Hispaniana etc etc). It's lazy, and it's a form of cultural imperialism and white-washing. I didn't say that Celtic names were underused and I don't think Kit did. I just quoted some of the longer (and, to lazy modern eyes less palatable) ones as an example of how polysyllabic names are not in fact odd or uncommon. (When I was still teaching full-time, I used to dream of a moratorium on Celtic fantasy so that I could get on with my subject -- mediaeval Ireland and Wales -- without having to deal with all the modern myths.)
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The person who is talking about Celtic names (
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I'm a bit of a nerd about this, alas: being a Celtic historian, these books get mentioned to me a lot.
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On a side note - it seems to me that the rant is not actually about names, but about the basis in which fantasy novels are set. Too many focus on what is basically medieval Britain, with all the whitewashing and Euro-centricism that implies. I've read quite a few good blog posts on the subject from authors of color, and I agree that there does need to be more fantasy that involves characters of color and different backgrounds and inspirations. I just don't particularly find the Celts to be that unused as inspiration nowadays. People like Marion Zimmer Bradley have been tapping that source since the 70s to good effect.
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The starting point for that rant was a comment that 'bad' fantasy names are polysyllabic and that this latter is unrealistic. I thought about that for a while and came to the conclusion that it's not in fact true -- lots of cultures use polysyllabic names routinely, but the (Americanised) West doesn't do so as much. Hence the rant.
You are absolutely right about the Eurocentricity. I really don't like books which are Europe-with-fantasy-names (Francika, Germanoria, Hispaniana etc etc). It's lazy, and it's a form of cultural imperialism and white-washing.
I didn't say that Celtic names were underused and I don't think Kit did. I just quoted some of the longer (and, to lazy modern eyes less palatable) ones as an example of how polysyllabic names are not in fact odd or uncommon.
(When I was still teaching full-time, I used to dream of a moratorium on Celtic fantasy so that I could get on with my subject -- mediaeval Ireland and Wales -- without having to deal with all the modern myths.)
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