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I am starting the outline of a story and I am curious about characters names. This is set in a fictional world where women are in control and has always been. Its around a 100,000 years from now and its almost inconceivable that men were ever in charge. Women have developed a power long ago to overpower men and gained control. Theres rumor's that men were dominant but its mostly dismissed as impossible
so in this world, should some men be given like female type names to show they are submissive and should women have feminine names since femininity is dominant and and what is thought to be powerful in this setting and men dont see it as being demeaning like in our world
Im just curious about all of this
and what about a male character that feels in between and wants to try to unite the two and not be submissive
Comments
In all actuality, I would
In all actuality, I would think in a future 100,000 years from now, names would be completely different than what they are now. However, if you're going to go with names such as we have now, and are looking for more "powerful" names for the women, I suppose using names ending in a 'y' would lend themselves to being more submissive. They tend to be used for the younger generation for both women and men. However, such names might work for a more submissive male population. Danny, rather than Dan or Daniel. Kenny, rather than Ken or Kenneth. Etc.
As far as women having feminine names, if femininity is dominant, then it seems that it would be the way to go.
As for the male character, are you asking about his name, or the fact that he's gender fluid? If it's a female dominated society, that could be seen as a huge problem for the matriarchy in general.
Hugs!
Rosemary
Names ending in Y?
I don't think that names ending in Y or a similar sound are necessarily submissive. Robby, Freddie, Arnie, Toby, Frankie... the list goes on.
Even worse, that may only hold true for English-type dialects, even if it has any truth there. Russian, for example, has Evgeny, Yuri, Giorgy, Valeriy and many other similar names.
According to the language, certain endings may be forced due to grammatical rules( -ov, -ova for example). I have attempted to do that with Anmar names with a certain amount of success but even so there are outliers.
Penny
Interesting
The males could all have cute pet-like names assigned to them by a female panel who know them -- on their sixteenth birthday. Woody - Ace - Bow - Pogo - Biscuit - Aero - Pal - Socks.
The females would have normal female names that are somewhat timeless. Take a list of the top fifty female names for 1920 and a similar list for 2020. Use only those names that are on both lists.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Most names [added to]
Most names have meanings. Some don't, Wendy for example is a made up name from James Barrie's Peter Pan. But Erin means Ireland and Joyce means Joyous.
Men's names should probably be cutesy and endearing, ending in -ee or -ko or -ell or -kin.
Women's names could be strong names that have always been female. Miriam, Ruth, Isabel, Tabitha, Hilda, Catherine, Hannah.
Or names that connote strength or power, like Valerie (strength), Ursula (she-bear), Sheba (a queen), Shiloh (for the battle), Minerva (the goddess).
Women could even be using what were once male names like, Thorr, Ulysses, Michael, Hermes.
And men could have the sweeet soft names like: Rose, Petal, Feather, Pearl, Jade, Lily, Dawn.
Also, male names could be baby animal names: Fawn, Kitten, Puppy, Cubbie, Foal, Chick. [Added]
Lots of ways you can go and you don't have to stick to one idea. Mix and Match.
They aren't speaking English, anyway. :) Ten thousand years is about the linguistic horizon, beyond which things are not going to be recognizable.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Suggestion
I suggest that you reduce the time in the future down to 1000 or 2000 years -- maybe 10000 years if you want language to be utterly disconnected from modern languages or perhaps an intervening glaciation event. Consider these rough times:
100000 years is huge -- even if geologically and astronomically puny.
-- Daphne Xu
Names
After a female dominant society has been established for so long names would probably be very solidly set as to which is which, a strong male character might have a name that is nonspecific which might be a plot point. Or just go with the names according to current usage with a note saying that society would be changed so much it's silly to try and guess what it would be so you will use names that say what you want and make it easy for readers to get your meaning. I have seen writers go both ways and even do the note.
Time is the longest distance to your destination.
Name/gender reversal
There are many name in the past that were men/boy's names, which have been taken over by women/girl's' (Remember Shelly Berman?)
Just to name a few:
Names like Ashley, Alexis, Beverly, Brook, Carol, Courtney, Dana, Drew, Evelyn
I have a list of unisex names that I've compiled to assist me in naming characters. The thought being that if our cross-dressing character had such a name it might be seen as an excuse for someone to misgender them and think they were female and so it would then seem more likely that they could slip into the feminine roll. I haven't used the idea very often.
I mention it because your male characters could all have such names... I don't know, just an idea.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
no names ending in -son or variations in other cultures
Others have commented on first names, so I will focus on family names, instead.
I think that no-one in your proposed future society would be named Sarah Johnson or Peter Johnson. Nor would names like McDonald or O'Connor have survived. Having a male character named Peter Carolsdaughter, however, might be too jarring to the readers. So, I would suggest that you stick to last names based on an ancestor's occupation or birthplace, with a more subtle tendency to female cultural dominance, thus Peter Weaver, Peter Dancer, Peter Nurse, Peter Ladysmith, Peter Charlotte.
This would also apply to towns and cities. Places such as Williamsburg and Georgetown would probably have been renamed over time.
I am ambivalent about family names such as Smith, Carpenter, Farmer, etc. To me they are associated with a mental image of a male ancestor doing work that required a lot of hard physical labor. In your future society, however, this would change as women would take over such work, so these would no longer be seen as male dominated occupations.
Daughter Variant
I agree that Carolsdaughter is jarring and too obvious. But variants like Daughcarol and Daughamy that look and (maybe) sound sufficiently strange might be good in such a culture. There would be no need to explain the prefix Daugh. The "gh" could be silent or voiced as the situation warranted.
I was reminded of a novel and movie (and presumably the series that I never saw) that gave names like Offred, Ofglen, and Ofwarren to ladies of a certain class when they were assigned to men. The prefix "Of" signified belonging to.
The distant time suggests that a number of apocalypses might have occurred, and perhaps an ice age or two. So much will have changed.
-- Daphne Xu
Some considerations
First one that comes to mind is, and is a big one as it has bearing on how women would treat the men in your future society, "how did women become to dominate gender?"
I doubt it was decided by an arm wrestling match, and any kind of revolt/war/combat would still be heavily in favor of stronger and larger males winning.
How about some type of disease or virus or human made anti viral drug. You could even use the Covid vaccinations as ground zero for this little bug. A problem that only shown its self in the descendants of those that got the vaccination. The problem... Only noticeable in males as it occurs when the body begins producing testosterone in the large amounts of going through puberty and causes decreased brain functions making all adult males too stupid to do anything on their own...LOL
of course dream up your own cause, or use that one. But what I am getting at is masculine and feminine names wouldn't need to change, but the thought behind them would. Macho names would be associated with lower intelligence, inability to preform simple tasks, etc. While feminine names would be associated with leadership, intelligence, power, etc.
Going back to the question. How did women become the dominate gender? How ever this occurred would dictate how women felt about men and thus how they would treat them.
I could even see women using some masculine names in derogatory slang terms. Instead of saying, "You're an idiot!" they might say, "You're a Larry!"
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Hmm again
We already have the beginnings of the sex/gender power shift. In many areas heavy pollution has (seemingly) been causing male feminization. If you add a apocalyptic event that shifts the birth ratio male to female….
Writing in English you can track naming back 2000 years or so. That might give you a few ideas. Also last names are a recent innovation. Robinhood name John and Will illustrate the issue addressed by last names.
Hope that helps.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
Instead of names, what about titles?
Men have one title for status... "Mr." whereas for women there are different ones to declare the availability of the woman, growing out of the need to identify if they were free for marrying off. Maybe make up different equivalents of Miss, Mrs., etc that denote the man's availability.
Why not just swap them?
Give all the women typically masculine names and all the men typically feminine names.
Then you can have your Harry (a woman in charge) and your Harriette (a meek and submissive man), or your George (female) and Cynthia (male).
- io
100,000's years from now in a
100,000's years from now in a fictional world , why use 21st century names. Often male names are short, one syllable , female are often two or more "prettier" names . Not always I know, but you could make them up. like, Om for a female and Relar for male. If marriage exists he would be Relarom
I know there is a book where women develop the ability to electrocute by touch , this leads them to take control. To me it seemed silly . A knife requires touch , and a bullet will stop anyone coming near you. That part of the story may be a challenge.
You could have the women growing larger over time. I did a "portal" story set in a 50's world, where females had evolved to be 7ft tall, and the males were 5ft ish. Usually the powerful end up in charge. In the last 50 odd years physical strength matters less. You could go that pregnant women give off pheromones that cause their partners breasts to develop.
Just throwing ideas in. The femdom type stories don't seem too popular on here though.
Leeanna