The names of the fae folk in Il Mheg follow a specific convention based on creating meanings from “runes of power.” This appears to be entirely separate from their usual language, (used for place names and spoken by Feo Ul) which appears to be based on either Gaelic or Welsh, and in any case is beyond my area of expertise.
Fae folk names are directly referenced in the quests “What’s in a Name” and “The Path to Popularity”. (English translation names) Notably, all of the fae races (Pixies, Fuath, Nu Mou, Amaro) use the same naming convention, except for the Amaro with one-word names, who were presumably all named by the non-fae species. (see the MSQ quests in Wolekdorf)
The two quests that discuss fae names give meanings for 10 of the name parts, and heavily imply the meaning for an 11th. (Tyr) However, there are 24 distinct name parts used in Il Mheg, leaving us with 13 name parts that are given no in-game translation.
Based on the meanings given in-game, the morphology of the name parts, and the number of existing name parts, I’m extremely confident that fae folk names in Il Mheg are based entirely on the runes of the Elder Futhark, a real-world historical writing system used between the 2nd and 8th centuries throughout northern Europe. The specific names are mostly based on the Anglo-Saxon versions of those rune names, and additionally the word forms have been changed around a bit from the common English transliterations of those words. (some ‘L’s mutate into ‘R’s, which is explained somewhat by rendering them into Japanese and back, some letters are transposed, some letters are dropped, etc) In some cases the name parts don’t line up exactly to any historical rune name, so there are a few guesses here, but the combination of so many of the morphological components lining up well, and the given meanings working out so well, makes me confident that this analysis holds water.
So here’s my working list. Names marked with a * have their meaning directly explained or heavily implied in-game. All others are interpolated from historical rune names.
Feo* - treasure
Ul* - moon, darkness
Thon - thorn
Ose - speech, mouth
Lad - travel (also literally ‘to ride’, which could be interpreted as ‘hard worker’)
Kenn - torch, fire
Gyuf - gift
Uin* - happiness
Hagan - hail (metaphorically, ‘storm’)
Nee - need
Ys - ice
Iala* - turning of the seasons
Jul* - yew
Wyd - celebration? feasting? (see notes)
Sul* - flower
Sigun* - sun, light
Tyr* - warrior
Beq - birch
Eo* - star, ‘lesser light’
Marn - mankind
Aenc* - water
An - (this one is complicated, see notes)
Daen - dawn
Oul* - land, earth
cont.
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Fae folk names are directly referenced in the quests “What’s in a Name” and “The Path to Popularity”. (English translation names) Notably, all of the fae races (Pixies, Fuath, Nu Mou, Amaro) use the same naming convention, except for the Amaro with one-word names, who were presumably all named by the non-fae species. (see the MSQ quests in Wolekdorf)
The two quests that discuss fae names give meanings for 10 of the name parts, and heavily imply the meaning for an 11th. (Tyr) However, there are 24 distinct name parts used in Il Mheg, leaving us with 13 name parts that are given no in-game translation.
Based on the meanings given in-game, the morphology of the name parts, and the number of existing name parts, I’m extremely confident that fae folk names in Il Mheg are based entirely on the runes of the Elder Futhark, a real-world historical writing system used between the 2nd and 8th centuries throughout northern Europe. The specific names are mostly based on the Anglo-Saxon versions of those rune names, and additionally the word forms have been changed around a bit from the common English transliterations of those words. (some ‘L’s mutate into ‘R’s, which is explained somewhat by rendering them into Japanese and back, some letters are transposed, some letters are dropped, etc) In some cases the name parts don’t line up exactly to any historical rune name, so there are a few guesses here, but the combination of so many of the morphological components lining up well, and the given meanings working out so well, makes me confident that this analysis holds water.
So here’s my working list. Names marked with a * have their meaning directly explained or heavily implied in-game. All others are interpolated from historical rune names.
Feo* - treasure
Ul* - moon, darkness
Thon - thorn
Ose - speech, mouth
Lad - travel (also literally ‘to ride’, which could be interpreted as ‘hard worker’)
Kenn - torch, fire
Gyuf - gift
Uin* - happiness
Hagan - hail (metaphorically, ‘storm’)
Nee - need
Ys - ice
Iala* - turning of the seasons
Jul* - yew
Wyd - celebration? feasting? (see notes)
Sul* - flower
Sigun* - sun, light
Tyr* - warrior
Beq - birch
Eo* - star, ‘lesser light’
Marn - mankind
Aenc* - water
An - (this one is complicated, see notes)
Daen - dawn
Oul* - land, earth
cont.
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