Xavarian's name is an approximation given the old, original, side-character he's based off of.. who's name is much worse. Â That character's name is Xsaiav'lairnn (Ks-save-el-air-nn), his last name being Mystrif, when he had one. Â
There is a lot of crazy involving how the much older (both IC and OOC) base character got his name (there was a world full of naming lore, in which various letters and combinations meant various things, and everyone was named based on certain criterea, with names changing as people grew, and whatnot; aka, crazy business.) Â BUT Xavarian is a lot more simple.
First I checked the lore on Elezen names. Â Which was basically 'French sounding'. Â I went through a bunch of lore-friendly name generators, expecting to keep none of the names, but just for examples of lore acceptable ideas. Â Then I looked up a bunch of French names for general approximations. Â I actually wanted to keep the feel of my character's original base name as close as possible, and knew I wanted it to start with an X, so when I found the expected name 'Xavier' and the name 'Varian', I stuck the two of them together.
What's even better to me about 'Varian' being in there is that it was said to be based on the word 'variable', and the concept of this character has always had very strong connections to 'endless possibilities', the Unknown, riddles and puzzles, and logical / scientific deduction. Â
With Mystrife I just stuck an e on the end of Mystrif because I don't know French at all, but I figured they have 'Mystique', which is close, and seems lore compliant to me (or at least I hope it is, X-Men aside). Â The name Mystrif itself actually came from a combination of Mystery and Mischief sort of stuck together when I suddenly and unexpectedly needed to give Xsaiav'lairnn a last name on the spot. Â ... Though the nickname given to my character by other characters (due to his crazy first name) became 'Myst' so the last name kinda grew on me as pretty important too; and something else I wanted to keep. Â Now, in FFXIV, I suppose it's more like 'Mystique' and 'Strife' which. Â Is still pretty accurate, all things considered. Â *sweats*
Mashing things together, man.
There is a lot of crazy involving how the much older (both IC and OOC) base character got his name (there was a world full of naming lore, in which various letters and combinations meant various things, and everyone was named based on certain criterea, with names changing as people grew, and whatnot; aka, crazy business.) Â BUT Xavarian is a lot more simple.
First I checked the lore on Elezen names. Â Which was basically 'French sounding'. Â I went through a bunch of lore-friendly name generators, expecting to keep none of the names, but just for examples of lore acceptable ideas. Â Then I looked up a bunch of French names for general approximations. Â I actually wanted to keep the feel of my character's original base name as close as possible, and knew I wanted it to start with an X, so when I found the expected name 'Xavier' and the name 'Varian', I stuck the two of them together.
What's even better to me about 'Varian' being in there is that it was said to be based on the word 'variable', and the concept of this character has always had very strong connections to 'endless possibilities', the Unknown, riddles and puzzles, and logical / scientific deduction. Â
With Mystrife I just stuck an e on the end of Mystrif because I don't know French at all, but I figured they have 'Mystique', which is close, and seems lore compliant to me (or at least I hope it is, X-Men aside). Â The name Mystrif itself actually came from a combination of Mystery and Mischief sort of stuck together when I suddenly and unexpectedly needed to give Xsaiav'lairnn a last name on the spot. Â ... Though the nickname given to my character by other characters (due to his crazy first name) became 'Myst' so the last name kinda grew on me as pretty important too; and something else I wanted to keep. Â Now, in FFXIV, I suppose it's more like 'Mystique' and 'Strife' which. Â Is still pretty accurate, all things considered. Â *sweats*
Mashing things together, man.
