What's in a name?: Paizo naming disasters


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

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This is a part rant but also a call to attention about Pathfinder's HORRENDOUS naming system. Too many times I've encountered names in various APs are impossible/clumsy/ridiculous to read let alone pronounce.

Either Pathfinder needs to try harder to make names pronounceable OR start including pronunciation breakdowns for all their names.
So fellow players what are some of the ridiculous names you've come across in Pathfinder materials?

For me I bear a special hate for the following:
*Sarenrae (clumsy to say and I feel like it should be SareNAE instead)
*Orik Vancaskerkin - so this is an HUMAN name???
*Demon Lord, Kostchtchie - Most of the demons in Pathfinder are unpronounceable
*Ardathanatus - Elven name from Shattered Star
*Volioker Briskalberd - A Dwarven locksmith name apparently

These are ones close at hand but I remember so many over the years that make me stop and scratch my head.


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I've never had a problem with it.


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Even two decades after my Russian classes in college, Kostchtchie is perfectly pronounceable.


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Kostchtchie's been around since 1982. Blame Gygax for that one.


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Sarenrae is one of the worst. The first time I pulled out the name my players immediately changed it to Saran wrap and will forever only refer to the goddess as such. Most other long/complicated names just get shortened to something easy.


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You do realize the vast majority of the demon lords are taken from human mythology. And most of human mythology isn't Anglo-Saxon English.

As for character names... so what? If the name bugs you then don't use it. You are running the game, you can modify it as you want.


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I sense an upwelling of Anglo-Saxon prejudice.

*Sarenrae (clumsy to say and I feel like it should be SareNAE instead)

Let your tongue and breagth ease into the name instead of trying to force it out as if were German, and the name becomes easy to pronounce

*Orik Vancaskerkin - so this is an HUMAN name???

From the guide to baby names: Orik .. a baby boy name. Meaning. English Meaning: The name Orik is an English baby name. In English the meaning of the name Orik is: From the ancient oak tree.

Not only is it Human, it's Earth Anglo-Saxon

*Demon Lord, Kostchtchie - Most of the demons in Pathfinder are unpronounceable

That one if you want to complain about... do it to TSR... the name is pre-Paizo.

Silver Crusade

Do I know you Aaron? Anyways, Sarenrae wasn't the problem just the fact that The Harrowing had some god/ goddess With a similar sounding name. Long story short my party went through thinking Sarenrae was killed because that's how our GM said the name. Sonnorae, for the record, was the real name. Despite the mix up though it created some interesting conversations, not to mention, our Main fighter thought himself Indestructible and declared himself their new God. Fun times. Thank god I was playing my monk that took a vow of silence. Or he would have ruined most of those mix ups.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

My real name is Ivica Karatovic - that's a human name.

So uh, I've not had that much trouble pronouncing most names in the game. Relax, pronounce the names as phonetically as possible and you should be right.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Man, anyone having trouble saying "Sarenrae" is... well, not sure I can help you much.

Frankly, Paizo's waaaaaay better at coming up with names than some of their predecessors...

(Blibdoolpoolp. Gruumsh. Drizzt, which almost everyone I knew pronounced "Drizzit" all through our high school years reading those books. Luruar- not difficult, but sounds terrible. And so on.)

Grand Lodge

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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Tangent101 wrote:
And most of human mythology isn't Anglo-Saxon English.

Everyone knows world history began in 1776.

'Murca.

-Skeld


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Kostchtchie is, as I recall, a wizard from a number of russian folk tales. His shtick was hiding his heart in various things to make him immortal, only to have it discovered by various maidens. Don't blame TSR. They only made him a frost giant. A friend told me it's pronounced "kaschey" or "kaschkey". I don't know enough russian to know if it's true.

Sarenrae is... yes, it's a muddle to pronounce.

The others are just fine, though. Nothing that even remotely approaches the holy grail of bad names. The FR novel Lost Library of Cormanthyr has a character named Nephvt Scoontiphvft. You will have to give me a pass if I spelled that wrong.


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Sissyl wrote:
Kostchtchie is, as I recall, a wizard from a number of russian folk tales. His shtick was hiding his heart in various things to make him immortal, only to have it discovered by various maidens. Don't blame TSR. A friend told me it's pronounced "kaschey" or "kaschkey". I don't know enough russian to know if it's true.

In the TSR versio, he's a devil who was originally a frost giant conned by Baba Yaga.


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Cole Deschain wrote:
(Blibdoolpoolp. Gruumsh. Drizzt, which almost everyone I knew pronounced "Drizzit" all through our high school years reading those books. Luruar- not difficult, but sounds terrible. And so on.)

Ain't nothing wrong with Blibdoolpoolp.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

My second name is Jaraczewski. It's a human name from planet Earth. I dare you, I double dare you undereducated 'muricans to pronounce it correctly. You won't, unless you have a degree in Slavic studies or you hail from either Chicago or NY's Greenpoint.


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And also nothing wrong with Gruumsh. Blibdoolpoolp was pretty cleverly explained to be a result of that language in an article: Modifiers to the main word are added in the middle of that word, so: Bliboolp modified by doolp.


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Maglubiyet and Blipdoolpoolp are two favorites of mine.

I've always found Pathfinder names to be quite easy, but in that they aren't all monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon words, yeah, I guess they're kinda hard? I mean, Golarion is a big world with more than one language to go around. It's about as hard as any other world's nameset, including Earth's. If you think Golarion is impossible, you're gonna have a hard time in the real world.

I can't even get people to pronounce "Geier" right.

Silver Crusade

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My name gets mispronounced half the time, and it's two syllables (I can't complain too much, since I knew that when I picked it). If we had to base names in writing on what monolingual Anglo-Saxon Americans can pronounce reliably, every NPC would be named Bob Smith.

Scarab Sages

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Sarenrae
Saren-rae
Saren. (mass effect villain) rae (pronounced ray as per the normal vowel rules)

how is that a mess?


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I like all of the names given in the OP...
I actually thing Paizo do a great job of using names that are fairly easy to pronounce based on reading them. It's often tricky to work out where the stress syllable should be (I was saying Iomedae incorrectly for a while, before I heard someone say it on a Know Direction podcast) but for the most part, even the longer names are fairly intuitive.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

THE CHAOS

by Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité
(Netherlands, 1870-1946)

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
Mind the latter how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say - said, pay - paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable - admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You'll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
But it is not hard to tell
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the A of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you're not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.

The TH will surely trouble you
More than R, CH or W.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em -
Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight - you see it;
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does [1]. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry, fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess - it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the O of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid, vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation - think of Psyche! -
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won't it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying 'grits'?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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SARE-en-ray

Rhymes with: CARE in ray

Emphasis on the first syllable.

Scarab Sages

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*tries to make self feel better by perusing the whimsical artistry of 20th-Century non-fictional human 7-foot lizard-person/Yithian hybrid artist Zdzislaw Beksinski*


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So it's pronounced "JAM-ees juh-COBS", right?

#Paizonamingdisasters


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Yeah, not really sure how you can mess up Sarenrae's pronunciation.
Now, spelling it consistently? That's rough.

For some reason, Norgorber and Achaekek always seem to give me problems (the words, not the gods).


Kobold Cleaver wrote:

So it's pronounced "JAM-ees juh-COBS", right?

#Paizonamingdisasters

:-)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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My adavantage, of course, is that I've been saying names like Sarenrae and Norgorber and Achaekek...

(nor-GORE-bur)

(ah-CHAY-kek)

...for many years now... many of the Golarion deities are from my homebrew setting. Sarenrae is actually over 30 years old...

ANYWAY. If anyone's coming to PaizoCon, feel free to ask me to say any of the names out loud and I will!


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But will you sing them to the music of the Major-General's Song?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYZM__VdEjk&nohtml5=False ;)

That... would be 20 levels of awesome. ^^;;

Liberty's Edge

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Starfinder Superscriber

Somebody needs to corner James, make him say stuff, record it, and put it all online.

I remember that back in the days of Planescape, there were some pronunciation guides on the TSR and/or WotC site, with recordings of some of the names being pronounced. (How does one pronounce Baatezu and Tanari'i anyway? There were recordings!)


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bay-AA-tezu and tuh-NARR-i.


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If you can track down the old Inner Sea Campaign setting book, that had a pronunciation guide at the back. :-)


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Tangent101 wrote:

But will you sing them to the music of the Major-General's Song?

False ;)

That... would be 20 levels of awesome. ^^;;

fixed that for you. How is it, I learned to link before Tangent. :-)


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And then there's this doozy.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:

My adavantage, of course, is that I've been saying names like Sarenrae and Norgorber and Achaekek...

(nor-GORE-bur)

(ah-CHAY-kek)

...for many years now... many of the Golarion deities are from my homebrew setting. Sarenrae is actually over 30 years old...

ANYWAY. If anyone's coming to PaizoCon, feel free to ask me to say any of the names out loud and I will!

How about an official youtube video with someone from Paizo naming them?

Golarion lingustics^^

I´ve been wondering about american pronounciations very often and it made me question my english just as often :D
Most common pronounciation of Sarenrae i heard was more like Saeraenrae.

Liberty's Edge

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I've never had any meaningful problems with pronunciation. Nor any instances of looking at a name and saying 'How do I pronounce that?' in genuine confusion. I've probably pronounced some things slightly wrong, but who cares?

Frankly, I've had far more difficulty pronouncing real people's names than I ever had anyone or anything from Golarion. I'm convinced I still don't pronounce one of my players' names quite right, though I come closer than many people (she's Chinese).


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I have more trouble remembering NPCs' names than pronouncing them. As noted, a lot of the more difficult ones for an American tongue come from actual world mythologies.

Most of the examples listed seem....actually pretty phonetic to me. "Vancaskerkin"? Sure, it's long, but it's pronounced basically how it's spelled. Same with "Ardathanatus." And if you're not sure how to pronounce something, just make it up. It's not like anybody's gonna kick down your door and go "YOU MISPRONOUNCED ACHAEKEK NO MORE GAME FOR YOU."

Scarab Sages

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Meraki wrote:
... It's not like anybody's gonna kick down your door and go "YOU MISPRONOUNCED ACHAEKEK NO MORE GAME FOR YOU."

I don't know, have you met Achaekek's followers?


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You only meet one.

Sovereign Court

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My favorite from the past is ixitxachitl
How can you not love aquatic, intelligent, vampiric rays


I don't have any problems with pronunciation, but I have several with how dumb the names sound.

The most egregious is Norgorber, which sounds like the patron god of receiving wedgies and being yelled at by this guy.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
Meraki wrote:
... It's not like anybody's gonna kick down your door and go "YOU MISPRONOUNCED ACHAEKEK NO MORE GAME FOR YOU."
I don't know, have you met Achaekek's followers?

I mean, you might get a bit of a raised eyebrow for your ignorance, but if you're on the list they're going to kill you regardless of whether you can pronounce his name right or not.

Scarab Sages

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Deadalready wrote:
*Demon Lord, Kostchtchie - Most of the demons in Pathfinder are unpronounceable.

It's pronounced Cosh Eye. Koschei the Deathless is a character from Russian mythology & folklore. For some reason one of the Demonlords in the original Fiend Folio (AD&D's 2nd ever monster manual) was called Koschei. His writeup made it fairly evident that he was supposed to be Koschei the Deathless.

Evidently Paizo's authors might have felt the need to change the spelling to distance their version somewhat as the original demon wasn't exactly the most faithful representation of the character ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koschei

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Cylerist wrote:

My favorite from the past is ixitxachitl

How can you not love aquatic, intelligent, vampiric rays

Ik si (as in sit) cha chi tull

That's about as close as any of us ever managed back when we were running Night Below. when you come up against a name like that you just have to break it down then put it back together again.


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I don't find the sounds hard. It's the multisyllabicalness which bothers me (dragons being the most egregious culprits).

Liberty's Edge

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Sissyl wrote:
bay-AA-tezu and tuh-NARR-i.

But that begs the question of why the latter is Romanized with an apostrophe--Tanar'i seems to be pronounced the same as Tanari. Is the apostrophe just there to make it look cool?


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GALT, for obvious and non pronounce related reasons...


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I have trouble pronouncing names in PF material sometimes, but I've trouble oftentimes with names IRL too. Kind of a deal IRL, where I try to keep people pleased, but, fortunately, no one cares, or generally knows the difference, in the game.


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burkoJames wrote:

Sarenrae

Saren-rae
Saren. (mass effect villain) rae (pronounced ray as per the normal vowel rules)

how is that a mess?

+1

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