Names Too Generic/Complex?

[IOwnTheSpire]

I was just reading Jim Sterling's review of Destiny, where he pointed out that the Darkness, the Fallen, the Hive, etc. weren't good names, being too generic. It got me thinking about when names become too generic or too complex.

While the Darkness certainly sounds generic, there's only so many words you can use to describe something, it immediately gives a sense of evil, and calling it the Vrax'ylphundrazz would be kind of ridiculous. On the other hand, no intense science fiction drama would be taken seriously if our leads are Bob Johnson and Mary Smith.

So, what are your thoughts on the naming conventions in games and other media? (Examples of generic or complex names are appreciated)

 

[Malbourne]

Ooh, that's easy. When you append an epithet like this to your story:

"Legend of..."
I'll be the one to decide whether or not your game is worthy of "legendary" status, thankyouverymuch. This probably got really popular after Legend of Zelda, but what do I know? Books have been doing this for eons.

"...Story"
I guessed it was a story from the interplay between characters and the driving plot. I'm capable of picking up contextual clues, thankyouverymuch. These do lend themselves a sort of whimsical tone, I guess (Valdis Story, Cave Story, Vagrant Story), but it's not exactly descriptive.

":Origins"
Oh, this is where it all began? How fascinating! Good thing you appended a word to the game that will provoke no thought whatsoever (though I guess it's a good technique for indicating prequels; Batman: Arkham Origins, Dragon Age: Origins).

Guess what I think of the titles of Rayman: Legends and Rayman: Origins. I love those games like the dickens, but sometimes I actually struggle to remember which levels came from which games.

And while I'm at it, the Tales series may as well get a free pass, but these are all titles. It's a big pet peeve, but also (minutely) practical, because I have to organize my library and golly does it get difficult digging through a bloated section for a game.

 

[Rayce Archer]

As a general rule I am opposed to games with both a number AND subtitle. Capcom, looking at you here.

Titles that refer to the game's art or some other gimmick. Pixel piracy and the like.

Titles that call out the platform like it's part of the story. Anything Super, 64, HD, etc.

World war 2 games with three-word titles, of which the middle word is "of."

 

[Evonisia]

Guess what I think of the titles of Rayman: Legends and Rayman: Origins. I love those games like the dickens, but sometimes I actually struggle to remember which levels came from which games.

I think Rayman Origins was called that because it was going back to Rayman's original ways (it has the Mario style level system of the original, and it has the same golden circle thing at the end of every level).

Of course, it doesn't really have a story, so it is just a generic title.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Well I still like Persona 4 Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold its punchy and to the point you know exactly what game you are getting. Also theres Under Night in Birth Exe: Late which may be a bit to complex for its own good still I prefer it to them just slapping Super on the front or something looking at you Nintendo and Capcom.

 

[Aerosteam]

[Blank] Wars
[Blank] Unleashed
Ultimate [Blank]
[Blank] Origins
Chronicles of [Blank] / [Blank] Chronicles
Super [Blank]
Imagine [Blank]
[Blank] 2097
[Blank] Zero
Age of [Blank] / [Blank] of Ages
[Blank]Ville
[Blank] Mania
[Blank] of War
[Blank] Revenge
[Blank] Extreme
[Blank] Crisis
Legend of [Blank] / [Blank] Legends

Hmm? What are we talking about? Oh, generic naming and stuff? Dunno, probably easy marketing or something.

 

[runequester]

I think the 2 word rule I apply to heavy metal subgenres can work with games too.
You get two words to describe your game and make it stand out.

Subtitles are for expansions.

 

[Username Redacted]

Well I still like Persona 4 Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold its punchy and to the point you know exactly what game you are getting. Also theres Under Night in Birth Exe: Late which may be a bit to complex for its own good still I prefer it to them just slapping Super on the front or something looking at you Nintendo and Capcom.

UNIELs issue is that its title doesn't sound like a fighting game or even really a game title period. It's a great game and definitely my favorite fighting game so far this year but I could also imagine being forced to read Under Night In-Birth by some boring British twat for a high school English class.

I would also add, and this is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid, that if your protaginists name requires disambiguation on Wikipedia then you may have selected a name that is too common or generic.

 

[roski]

Names like Tlelaixu, Bene Gesserit or Kwisath Hadechacha for me are evocative names for epic forces in an awesome universe. Then again, names like Paul or Jessica, or even a generic word like alien remind me of great works, so an original name is not necessary for a story to be memorable.

 

[Pinkamena]

Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution is probably the most convoluted name of a game I know of. One could argue that when a title reaches a word count like that, it becomes cool again.

Spoiler

 

[Qage]

Halo was always pretty terrible with names so it's not surprising to hear that the tradition has been carried over to Destiny. I've always wondered if the naming in Halo was kept rather simple because they didn't want to encounter the issue of creating "sci-fi" sounding names for things that would just end up sounding silly, but they always ended up going too far in the other direction and managing to come full circle.

An issue I have with the alien races being named things such as The Fallen, The Hive or [I/]The Cabal[/I], is that those are all generic human words that can (mostly) be used in everyday conversation to describe something completely unrelated. So when I hear those names, I just end up finding it hard to believe that the aliens made absolutely no attempt to try and communicate and introduce their species, or if they didn't, a group of human officials got together in a large room and unironically decided that they should call a race of recently encountered aliens The Fallen, or any of the others.

Anyways, I was never particularly fond of the faction/alien names in Supreme Commander:

The Cybran Nation. The Aeon Illuminate. The Seraphim.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Soooo... nobody read the OP confirmed? (EDIT: Oh, Qage read it! Congrats, Qage!)

I liked the name of enemies in the PS1 Spyro games: Gnorcs, Earthshapers and Rhynocs. Simple but fairly original.

As for an example of stupid complicated names, I'll go with most of the Roegadyns in Final Fantasy XIV. A lot of their names look like someone fell asleep on a keyboard. Rysszwyn, Nedyrfohc, Murlsynt, Ahctwyb, Swyngohta and shit like that. Good luck remembering any of them.

 

[SNCommand]

Most ridiculous title has to be Ar Tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel, allow me to quote Unskippable, "Really? The only word that is a word there, is of"

Personally I think Destiny is ok with The Darkness, The Fallen, and The Hive, it's perhaps a bit generic, but you do have some general idea of what to expect, I'm sure there's other less generic names to use, but at least they're not called The Qraakvekcios, and playing the game makes you feel like you need a dictionary

 

[Poetic Nova]

Well, I doubt ag ame will ever be named like some songs from Nile like: Papyrus Containing The Spell to Preserve Its Possessor From Attacks From He Who Is In The Water.

Yes it's a real song title.

 

[Mezahmay]

I'm a little surprised "... ... Saga" wasn't brought up. I acknowledge there are good games with titles ending in saga, but god damn King just killed that for me. If you go to their website they proudly display six games with that exact naming scheme. Moving on, I think Destiny's naming in general is kinda vague. I mean it's hard to fault them since that's fantasy/sci-fi naming 101, but they could have tried a broad term with slightly more description to give some reason WHY things are good and bad beyond because their name is Light/Darkness. At this point in naming things, that sort of thing is overdone.

On a tangent, They Provide the Paint For the Picture-Perfect Masterpiece That You Will Paint on the Insides of Your Eyelids is also a real song name by Streetlight Manifesto. Good song, no idea where the hell that name came from.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

Any title that has the "re-" prefix in the title, basically making up a word, and having a colon-subtitle are all red flags for me. So I really didn't like title of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Also the words "dark" and "origins" are especially generic.

In terms of titles that are too complex, I generally haven't seen this as a problem with big titles, though some more niche Japanese titles have left me baffled. But the most ridiculous title I have ever seen comes from a music album from the group Chumbawamba (the one-hit wonder from the 90's with the song Tubthumping) which a title for an album as follows:

The Boy Bands Have Won, and All the Copyists and the Tribute Bands and the TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture to Be Shaped by Mimicry, Whether from Lack of Ideas or from Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try to Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother's Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don't Just Regurgitate Creative History, or Hold Art and Music and Literature as Fixed, Untouchable and Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try to 'Guard' Any Particular Form of Music Are, Like the Copyists and Manufactured Bands, Doing It the Worst Disservice, Because the Only Thing That You Can Do to Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It's Over, Then It's Done, and the Boy Bands Have Won

or just shortened to "The Boy Bands Have Won."

 

[Maximum Bert]

Well I still like Persona 4 Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold its punchy and to the point you know exactly what game you are getting. Also theres Under Night in Birth Exe: Late which may be a bit to complex for its own good still I prefer it to them just slapping Super on the front or something looking at you Nintendo and Capcom.

UNIELs issue is that its title doesn't sound like a fighting game or even really a game title period. It's a great game and definitely my favorite fighting game so far this year but I could also imagine being forced to read Under Night In-Birth by some boring British twat for a high school English class.

Maybe but I think a bigger problem is its only released in Japan although im surprised (and delighted) its actually getting a reasonable amount of coverage overseas like you im pretty impressed by the game. Isnt it a visual novel as well though like melty blood?the names pretty unique though dont think you will easily forget it and I feel it fits the game well but yeah it is stupid.

For names of enemies the space wizard in Destiny cracked me up I couldnt decide if they were really that lazy and stupid or playing a joke with a poker face. I joked with my friend that Goblins will be showing up next and he told me that they actually do, come to think of it Destiny has pretty crap names for al lot of stuff and you cant even name your own character dammit.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Any title that has the "re-" prefix in the title, basically making up a word, and having a colon-subtitle are all red flags for me. So I really didn't like title of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Also the words "dark" and "origins" are especially generic.

In terms of titles that are too complex, I generally haven't seen this as a problem with big titles, though some more niche Japanese titles have left me baffled. But the most ridiculous title I have ever seen comes from a music album from the group Chumbawamba (the one-hit wonder from the 90's with the song Tubthumping) which a title for an album as follows:

The Boy Bands Have Won, and All the Copyists and the Tribute Bands and the TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture to Be Shaped by Mimicry, Whether from Lack of Ideas or from Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try to Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother's Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don't Just Regurgitate Creative History, or Hold Art and Music and Literature as Fixed, Untouchable and Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try to 'Guard' Any Particular Form of Music Are, Like the Copyists and Manufactured Bands, Doing It the Worst Disservice, Because the Only Thing That You Can Do to Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It's Over, Then It's Done, and the Boy Bands Have Won

or just shortened to "The Boy Bands Have Won."

Oh wow, this puts Nile's 'Papyrus Containing The Spell...' to shame.