Neighms

I love to read fantasy. I love science fiction. I hate trying to figure out how to pronounce the thirteen letter, twelve syllable neighm. I used to joke with my family that I was going to have a son whose name I spelled S-A-M but it would actually be pronounced Bob. While it makes it seem more exotic to have a new unique name, you don’t want to hang up your readers. You may argue that they won’t be reading the book aloud, but even when reading silently to yourself, a new word, or confusing name will cause a break in the reading. One or two unique names isn’t bad (think Hermione, Ron, Harry). If you have magical terms or places, then keeping the names simple may be the best bet. Spelling the names in different ways is a good option, but you don’t want to get too extreme. Creating new names that are only one or two syllables are safe. Just make sure that you don’t go overboard and lose readers because they can’t even begin to picture Xirchezsith.