One of the great things about theSouls seriesgames is the enormous attention to detail that the developers pay when creating their worlds, along with a subtle narrative that encourages us to explore these worlds ourselves.
An important part of it are the names of the characters and lands the developers choose. In fact, these names always bear some meaning, and, even though to some it might look that they’re just “another random fantasy name”, they have meanings that are usually related to the story of their characters or places, often being really intriguing hints on the game’s lore. These names are often even composed in linguistically correct ways based both on real-life and fictional languages. In fact it’s almost a Tolkien like approach where From Software even uses some of the elements from the Elvish languages created by J.R.R. Tolkien.
I enjoy researching the etymology of the Souls series names as you’ve seen in myrecent explorationof the names of Pyromaners and in this post I have listed all the names I’ve covered so far in my research. Of course the list is far from being finished, and it doesn’t even include all the names I’ve researched so far, only those I have discussed in videos. In those I’ve taken a look at their etymology, roots, and in which way exactly they fit their character or place.
As these names often represent their characters quite well, these meanings might also be very helpful to understand the story of Dark Souls better.
There are about 90 names in this list from things people and places in this game, but I also included some alleged names that might be possible names of some characters that are left anonymous in the game, such as the Nameless King, for example.
In fact this list is the first stage of my work on the etymology dictionary of Dark Souls, which I’d like to make more or less a proper dictionary with all the roots and elements and references. What follows are some possible etymological meanings of the names, and presently you can check out thisplayliston mychannelfor a video for every name listed here for an in depth exploration on the etymology and history behind each name.
My greatest thanks to my associate Vitar for his help with some of the names. As you can see, there is quite the list of names present in this series, each with their own history and roots. Even so, this list is still only scratching the surface. As we progress in our research we will add further directories and definitions of existing and new names to explore!
Take some time and look into the names of some of the characters that interest you can try and tease out some of the meanings for yourself. It’s a fantastic mental exercise and adds an extra layer to this already extremely deep and subtle game, and one you could devote years of examination to. During this holiday season, it’s a bit of ornamentation that I’m certainly thankful for!
