Real-World Names in Oblivion

[SoulofChrysamere]

Real-world names in Oblivion that I have noticed. If you don't know who these people are, look 'em up. Uesp.net's a good place for quick info on a lot of TES-related stuff.

 

 

1. Francois Motierre -- "Francois" is French (for "Francis" if I'm not mistaken).

 

2. Salomon Geonette -- "Salomon" is "Solomon" in some European language (I think Dutch).

 

3. Giovanni Civello -- "Giovanni" is an Italian name. Civello might be an actual Italian surname, but I'm not sure.

 

4. Samuel Bantien -- We've all heard the name "Samuel".

 

5. Rochelle Bantien -- Might be an actual French name, but when I saw this one, I thought of the fortress of "La Rochelle" in Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers.

 

6. Cicero Verus -- "Cicero" was the name of a very famous orator in the ancient Roman Republic.

 

7. Claudette Perrick -- "Claudette".......yeah.

 

8. Wilbur -- No explanation needed.

 

9. Lucien Lachance: "Lucien" of course.

 

10. Antoinetta Marie: Queen Marie Antoinette's name reversed.

 

11. Guilbert Jemane: "Guilbert".........

 

12. Owyn: Sounds just like "Owen".

 

13. Ysabel Andronicus -- "Ysabel" is a Spanish spelling of "Isabel".

 

14. Mirabelle Monet -- "Mirabelle"'s a name, and so is "Monet" as in the famous artist Claude Monet.

 

15. Timothee LaRouche -- "Timothee" = alternate spelling of "Timothy".

 

16. Alessia Caro -- "Alessia"'s a real-world name.

 

17. Matthieu Bellamont -- "Matthieu" is French for "Matthew".

 

18. Vicente Valtieri -- "Vicente" is Spanish/Portuguese/Italian for "Vincent".

 

 

BONUS FUN FACT: If you were to ask Sotha Sil what the name of Baenlin's Nord butler was, he'd say "Dreugh Vomit." If you don't get it, find the book in the game that mentions Sotha Sil and "grom".

 

 

BAD PUN ALERT: Next time you find yourself without money, say this to someone: "I'm baroque...'cause I'm all out of Monet." It would also help to have a recording of "Ba dum tshhhhhhh" ready.

 

 

Eb de ebbia ebbe, that's all, folks!

[IndorilTheGreat]

I've noticed that most of these names are those of Bretons (who can be associated with their real-life counter-parts, the Breton people).

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

Hah, reminds me of the Mount and Blade skill book Easter Eggs. All of them with I think one exception are titles of actual famous medieval books like Rhetorica ad Herennium and De Re Militari. Edited September 18, 2011 by RatcatcherOfKvatch

[Lanceor]

Breton names are mostly based on French names, whereas Imperials are mostly based on Roman ones.

 

From the list, the French sounding names are Francois Motierre, Salomon Geonette, Samuel and Rochelle Bantien, Claudette Perrick, Lucien Lachance, Antoinetta Marie, Guilbert Jemane, Mirabelle Monet, Timothee LaRouche and Matthieu Bellamont. It turns out that all of them except for Lucien Lachance are indeed Bretons.

 

Likewise, Giovanni Civello, Cicero Verus, Ysabel Andronicus, Alessia Caro and Vicente Valtieri are Roman sounding names, and except for Vicente Valtieri, they are all Imperials.

[SoulofChrysamere]

Indeed, Lanceor. Also, I forgot about the small settlement of Blankenmarch near Leyawiin that has Philip Frane, Floyd Nathans, and Hanz gro-(something). There's also a couple of Rodericks now that I think of it.

[Lanceor]

Hmmmm... I'm sure that I've heard the name Martin in the real world somewhere. The Blades seem to have a lot of real world names as well: Jauffre, Renault, Steffan, Cyrus, Caroline and perhaps even Achille.

[jamochawoke]

Protip:

 

Almost all names in pretty much every video game are real-world names or simple derivatives of them (switching letters around or adding extraneous apostrophes). That or they are simple nouns or verbs describing the character like "City Swimmer". Why? Because coming up with new names for dozens to hundreds of NPC's is really annoying... and there are already almost a billion different real world names out there. Why try to make something new of something that's been done that many times before? lol

 

Even Tolkien's names in Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion were all based on names from the languages he constructed his languages from, with a few notable exceptions... and that man spent YEARS of his life making up original sounding stuff ;)

Edited October 15, 2011 by jamochawoke

[roquefort]

I've noticed that most of these names are those of Bretons (who can be associated with their real-life counter-parts, the Breton people).

Of course true Bretons are actually Celts, and should have Celtic names.. :thumbsup:

[Rydan]

Even Tolkien's names in Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion were all based on names from the languages he constructed his languages from, with a few notable exceptions... and that man spent YEARS of his life making up original sounding stuff ;)

 

And just like Bethesta did with their Roman-sounding names, some of Tolkien's names are clearly based on real names - e.g. Moria (Moriah, a mountain in the book of Genesis), Gandalf (Gandolfo/Gandolf Castle), etc. He also took inspiration for his constructed languages from real languages, i.e. Welsh, Finnish, Hebrew (use of the semitic model of triconsonantal roots.)

 

Vicente Valtieri -- "Vicente" is Spanish/Portuguese/Italian for "Vincent".

 

Hm, no, Vincent in italian is Vincenzo. I think Vicente is just meant to sound like a latin name.

[Lodur9000]

Because coming up with new names for dozens to hundreds of NPC's is really annoying... and there are already almost a billion different real world names out there.

 

Not necessarily. The Dunmer NPCs in Morrowind all have unique names and there are hundreds of them. I get the impression from the way the names are formed that they were mostly procedurally generated using some simple rules. It's not hard to make a program to do that.