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[Nikov]

So I got to thinking about the new gender classes and how spiffy it would be to easily differenciate between dwarf genders just by looking at their names. It additionally seems culturally fitting to have different male and female first names. Hell, why I am giving an arguement for this? Here's the idea.

Here are a list of some average dwarf first names.

Urist
Rovod
Likot
Tulon
Adil
Monom
Fath
Sigun
Bembul
Udil
Onul
Asob
Lor
Dastot

They all seem pretty butch. But now lets make them a little softer.

Uri
Rovo
Liko
Tulo
Adi
Mono
Fa
Sigu
Bembu
Udi
Onu
Aso
Lo
Dasto

By removing the last constanent grouping (usually just the last letter, except Urist and Fath), we arrive on a vowel ending, feminine version of common first names.

Anyone care to kick this football around with me?

[varkarrus]

I would, but I don't like football

Nice idea, would it work with all of them?

[ein]

Just removing the last consonant grouping doesn't work too well.
For starters, there is such a thing as hard vowels.
Also, soft consonants.

For example, Adil and Fath both have soft vowels and consonants in the last sound grouping. Adi works, but Fa just sounds weird.
Then you've got Rovod. It has a hard vowel and a hard consonant in the last sound. Therefore, Rovo still has a hard, and therefore masculine, final sound. To make it feminine, change it to a soft vowel, like Rovi or Rova.

[nenjin]

They should just borrow from real life, and add "a' or "i" to the end of name strings to distinguish females.

[Eric Blank]

I would, but I don't like football

Nice idea, would it work with all of them?

yes this would work for all of them, in a weird way, at least i don't have any dwarves whose names don't end in a consonant or consonant pair.
And for the hard vowel/soft consonance thing, you could replace th and l with ch and d to make it masculine, and od on rovod with al to make it feminine. Since the list of names is so short each could be handled individually for this anyway. Some could be restricted or shared as well, depending on their meaning, and the total number increased.
Ingiz=male Ingas=female?
Having separate names, for dwarves at least, is a good idea in my opinion.

[HatfieldCW]

I'd rather see male and female first names chosen from separate lists.  Just changing the last morpheme feels too much like a romance language, and I don't want to imagine these little dudes being Italian.

[Footkerchief]

Gendered names, and most of the related ideas in this thread, have already come up several times:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=5774.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=28379.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=25424.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=38472.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=20967.0

This thread will be much more helpful to Toady if the replies build on those discussions, rather than restating them.

[darkflagrance]

I'd rather see male and female first names chosen from separate lists.  Just changing the last morpheme feels too much like a romance language, and I don't want to imagine these little dudes being Italian.

I agree.

Currently, Dwarven language does not work in the same way that romance languages do.

Rather, the entity files could divide up the area where names are selected, so that names with certain associations are chosen for males, names with other associations are chosen for females, and some names are shared between genders.

This could be further modified by procedural cultural elements, so some cultures would work the same way they do now, some would follow the above system, and some might generate a Romance-style language and possibly modify their names accordingly.

[Nikov]

Gendered names, and most of the related ideas in this thread, have already come up several times:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=5774.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=28379.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=25424.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=38472.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=20967.0

This thread will be much more helpful to Toady if the replies build on those discussions, rather than restating them.

I believe the most recent post in these threads is June 09. Rather than necro a thread to talk about my new idea, I am suggesting my new idea in its own thread. I do appreciate the need to keep the forums centralized, however.

Regarding thoughts about 'Rovod' and 'Rovo' not being different enough; sure, Rovo isn't a girl's name in a human's perception. But these a dwarves. Simply by having a consonant sound at the end of the first name, dwarves might differenciate genders. It certainly helps at parties.

"Oi. I'm Rovo McGoblinscorch."
"Fancy that! I'm Rovod McTorchcrafter! Let me buy you a drink!"

Regarding both genders drawing from their own list; sure. That's a much more robust method to use. However populating the list with new, feminine forms of dwarf names would be time consuming. If caste-specific names were used, Toady could simply create Dwarven feminine forms of words by deleting the last consonant grouping. That's all I'm saying. Not that it sounds good or that it magically solves all problems; just that its simple.

Obviously in a list-based system Toady could weed out the Lo's and Fa's by making Lori's and Fari's. Just kicking a football, like I said.

[Euld]

Do dwarven first names have meanings?  I know last names do :O  I would suppose that dwarf names with feminine meanings would be meant for female dwarves.
^The above sounded smarter in my head o_O

[Grek]

Do dwarven first names have meanings? , I know last names do :O , I would suppose that dwarf names with feminine meanings would be meant for female dwarves.
^The above sounded smarter in my head o_O

Yes. Each dwarven first name is a random untranslated noun or adjective:
Urist is dagger, Rovod is arch, Likot is ink, Tulon is road, Adil is wall, Monom is paper, Fath is sack, Sigun is tour, Bembul is mechanism, Udil is lantern, Onul is wayward, Asob is board, Lor is hate and Dastot is sword.

[PTTG??]

Let's not forget that the first Urist was female.

[silhouette]

evil evil urist...

Anywho i see the dwarven language as sort of uni-sex.

[Hummingbird]

Anywho i see the dwarven language as sort of uni-sex.

One could argue that this is totally appropriate for the dwarven culture. Truly, in other fantasy universes as well as in that of DF, there are no differences between the two sexes except that one pops out a baby once in a while. So isn't it perfectly sensible to believe that dwarven language would evolve to make no distinction between males and females?

[Felblood]

I'm with these guys, dwarves don't need gendered names.

Humans, elves, and maybe goblins should probably have gendered names, but there should be different rules.

If we try to force goblin names to end in soft vowels, the female names will all be "".