Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Origin of Species/World Names within Riot

KHVathiel·9/13/2019, 11:55:53 AM·4 votes·10,947 views

First post I think, here's hoping it's in the right board.

So! For a short while now I've been trying to figure out how it is that Riot has come up with the names of their factions/species/characters in Runeterra. While searching, I discovered a reddit post (from about five years ago as of writing this) from a user named RiotJeffJew that states that the word "Yordle" comes from a dream that a dev named Pabro had, in which he woke up yelling the word.

However, outside of this, I have not been able to find any other leads as to how the Dev teams came up with names such as Vastaya/Vastayashai’rei or what they looked at for inspiration. I myself would have guessed mythology or within history, such as how Pantheon is, in a sense, a Hoplite (A Greek light soldier which fought with spears and shields).

I'd love to know more about this as I enjoy coming up with species and world names, even if I sometimes struggle heavily with inspiration. Thanks!

14 Comments

RiotWAAARGHbobo9/22/2019, 12:54:32 AM9 votes

I can’t comment on the old stuff, other than it sometime infuriates me, but I can comment on how I do it since a bit before Rek’Sai.

We start with a short couple sentences defining the goal of the name. Things like. “Easy to say and comedic sounding.”

Then do a little bit of research — often names from 3 or more real world regions. Finding/looking for similarities and linguist conventions.

Then make a long list of names. Generally, a list of 100 names. Then do a google search and google image search for every single name. And cull names that are real world stuff. (Unless one of the goals is for the character to have a normal or real world name.)

Now that big list is probably only 12 to 20 names—because across a dozen or more languages -somebody has used that combo of letters before.

Now send that small list with the goals for the name to our localization team. Who can tell you if the name “sounds” like something it shouldn't. Now unless your unlucky you’ve got 6 or so names to show the team.

Then you and the team pick one. Then it goes to IP leads and sometimes legal.

I remember vastaya was meant to sound old, elven and lyrical. I believe i was looking at a lot of ancient eastern names, and was looking for things in those languages that could capture tolkien’s use of finnish for elven but make it older and less eurocentric.

Whyte Lyon9/13/2019, 1:10:51 PM3 votes

Most devs who were present during the ideation of the original place names and world building (like Noxus, Ionia, Shurima circa 2009) are unlikely to be around to answer that. I dont think any of the current writers and producers know how their predecessors came up with those things either.

But the producers who worked on more contemporary place names and the world-building thats been introduced over the last 3-5 years might have something to say. We'll see.

I will add. Even in-universe there's still no given reason why the biggest factions are called what they are, your just meant to accept it without question. But like in theory, it would be interesting to explore things like the symbology for title 'Demacia' and why an ensemble of refugees would call their new home as such.

mrmeddyman9/13/2019, 4:54:06 PM2 votes

Well the region names were made before the team really cared for lore which is why a lot of them are actually kind of generic (not in terrible way, just kind of obvious)

Demacia - Democracy, which is a bit silly since Demacia has always been a monarchy afaik, but it more reflects their one-sided good nature

Noxus - Noxious, Noxians were super evil (except Katarina ) and they ate babies, if you look at the old now non-canon Noxus city art, it's actually hilarious how unironically evil the city looks.

Piltover - The -Over part is supposed to sound British I guess, bringing to mind a sort of Victorian Industrial Revolution to mind since that's what it's based on

Zaun -

Shurima - Sounds arab because of the I-consonat-a at the end. In the arabic language so many words follow that phonetically. Usually places, or pet names for friends

Mount Gargantuan - It's real big so I guess why not lol, not sure when it got renamed to Targon but either way the inspiration was Greek culture centered around Mount Olympus, where Greeks believed their gods lived on its' summit. Rakkor are Spartans, Solari are Athenians You can see how that's evolved to modern Targon and Aspects.

Freljord - Literally Frozen Ground in some Scandinavian language

Bilgewater - Its a port so Water obviously and the area on the outer surface of a ship's hull where the bottom curves to meet the vertical side is called a Bilge

Ionia - lot's of vowels, makes it sound mystical. Also phonetically sounds like "I Own..." references the peoples resistance against Noxus protecting their lands