Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Pedro Kantor:

Lysander is a character from one of Shakespear's plays (or maybe poems).

They both had bird heads. If that doesn't mean father and son, nothing does.

Pedro Kantor is named for Peter Cantor, a former employee of GW.

Sgt. Salt wrote:Lysander is a character from one of Shakespear's plays (or maybe poems).

Lysander is also the name of a Spartan general.
Uriel Ventris is named after an angel, as are half the Dark Angels. Half the Blood Angels are named after demons. Dante is named after Dante Alighieri. I suspect that Chaplain Sapphon of the Dark Angels is named after the ancient Lesbian poet Sappho.
Khaine the bloody-handed god is named after Cain, the first murderer. Ciaphas Cain is likewise named after Cain and Joseph Caiaphas, a high priest involved in the trial of Jesus. If you've seen Jesus Christ Superstar you know him as the head Pharisee.
Marbo is an anagram of Rambo.

Logan Grimnar. Logan is the name of x-man Wolverine.
I'm not sure about Grimnar, but the word grim has the sense of being stern, harsh, savage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alpharius and Omegon. Alpha and Omega which are the first and last letters in the ancient Greek alphabet. There is also a quote from the Book of Revelations in the Bible: "I am the alpha and the omega" which some take to be an other name for god.

Necron – We all know that Necro is the Greek prefix meaning death or dead, But Necron 99 was also the name of a Robot assassin in the 1977 Ralph Bakshi film ‘Wizards’

So....much....Latin.....

Eldar. Read the Silmarillion, it's another name for the elves. IIRC it means "Star People".
Necromunda - from roots meaning "death" and "world"

JEB_Stuart wrote:So....much....Latin.....

... And Greek, don't forget the Greek!

Like the Tau

Tau - The Greek letter T.

Raxmei wrote:Eldar. Read the Silmarillion, it's another name for the elves. IIRC it means "Star People".

Indeed it does. I think its also mentioned in the Appendices of the Lord of the Rings

Fenris – Also called Fenrir A god like Wolf in Germanic and Norse Mithos. Fenrir was the father of the wolves. He is a son of Loki who kill the god Odin or Woden during the events of Ragnarök.

Russ - From Rus a Scandinavian race who conquered the ruling class of the region we know today as Russia. I'm not sure where the Leman is from though.

Actually, the Tau are possibly more likely to be a debased form of Tao, a concept found in Taoism, Confucianism, and more generally in ancient Chinese philosophy.

While the character of Tao (the physical letter) itself translates as 'way', 'path', or 'route', or sometimes more loosely as 'doctrine' or 'principle', it is used philosophically to signify the fundamental or true nature of the world. The concept of Tao differs from Western ontology, however; it is an active and holistic conception of the world, rather than a static, atomistic one.

Probably just GW being lazy as it's 'a bit oriental'

Dark Lord Seanron wrote:Actually, the Tau are possibly more likely to be a debased form of Tao, a concept found in Taoism, Confucianism, and more generally in ancient Chinese philosophy.

While the character of Tao (the physical letter) itself translates as 'way', 'path', or 'route', or sometimes more loosely as 'doctrine' or 'principle', it is used philosophically to signify the fundamental or true nature of the world. The concept of Tao differs from Western ontology, however; it is an active and holistic conception of the world, rather than a static, atomistic one.

Probably just GW being lazy as it's 'a bit oriental'

Don’t forget Tau is used in a lot of scientific equations. So its probably a mix of the Oriental meaning of Tao with the Hi-tech scientific inference of Tau.

I'm pretty sure that Biel-tan and Saim-hann are named after the Celtic holidays of Beltane and Samhain. The new craftworlds Yme-loc and Lugganath may be named after the Celtic holidays Imbolc and Lughnasadh but those are a little more of a stretch. Also, the Eldar (and elf) god Kurnous is named after the Celtic god Cernunnos.

DruidODurham wrote:I'm pretty sure that Biel-tan and Saim-hann are named after the Celtic holidays of Beltane and Samhain. The new craftworlds Yme-loc and Lugganath may be named after the Celtic holidays Imbolc and Lughnasadh but those are a little more of a stretch. Also, the Eldar (and elf) god Kurnous is named after the Celtic god Cernunnos.

Your right there, Samhain is infact where moden day hallowen partly comes from. It's also my Celtic birth sign represented by a raven.

Trust me, as a pagan I know all about the pagan holidays that Christianity has replaced with their own.

A little of topic, but I was wondering how names like Pedro have survived to the 41st millenium, but there are no Joneses or Muhammads.

Sorry I didn't mean to offend if I did.

Its a big universe, names have probaly survived somewhere Tallan probaly has a lot of Muhammads .

ArbitorIan wrote:A lot of the Dark Angels are named after (or very similarly to) the fallen angels exiled to earth in Christian Apochrypha, the Grigori. There's an awful lot of early Judaeo-Christian mythology floating around the 40k universe, though. Not least the entire idea of the Emperor. For example, the War in Heaven (Old Ones vs Necrontyr) is, unsurprisingly, named after the War in Heaven (God vs Satan)

This totally supports my "40k is an allegory" theory. Huzzah!

Does anyone know where Slaanesh and Tzneetch got their names from?

Also Lucisus the eternal, Lucius is latin for light, its also similar to lucifer, which also means light IIRC.

Lucifer means light bearer.

No offense taken Obsidian, just clarifying.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
-Baal (BA homeworld) named after Semitic god/Christian demon.
-Belial (master of Deathwing) named after Judeo-Christian demon.
-Orc is possibly derived from the Roman god Orcus, although there is apparently debate about this.
-Jaghatai Khan and Jubal Khan (primarch and chapter master of White Scars) obviously named after the Khans (i.e. Genghis, Kublai, etc.)
-Magnus the Red (1k Sons primarch) obviously Magnus is Latin for big, fitting for a giant primarch
-Captain Al'rahem (Tallarn captain) is named after one of the 99 names for god in Islam al-rahim (الرحيم) meaning the most merciful.

Did a little research:
-Apparently there is a village in Wrexham county borough, Wales named Tallarn Green (I couldn't find any Arab words related to Tallarn)
-Sarpedon (Soul Drinkers chapter master) various Greek gods
-There's apparently a Christian band named Cadia and they got the name from the Greek word Arcadia.

I find it kind of weird that there aren't more Arab derived words in the 40k universe, considering how much in our universe is named in Arabic (i.e. Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, Altair, Vega, etc.)

I've always wanted to do an Islamc style SM army. With power symairs and the like. But i have sooo many project and so little time.

On topic: I heard somewhere. I think it was in the production notes when the Tau came out that the Kroot got their name fron Nottingham slang for some sort of disese or disorder of the legs. But I may be wrong.

DruidODurham wrote:Trust me, as a pagan I know all about the pagan holidays that Christianity has replaced with their own.

A little of topic, but I was wondering how names like Pedro have survived to the 41st millenium, but there are no Joneses or Muhammads.

The far future is full of different cultures, but as the writers of 40K are mostly of a western background, then they focus more on those parts of the far future that are similar to that culture. Remember too that names like Pedro are not necessarily the person's real name just like english or latin is not the language spoken by the Imperium. The words and names are represented by words and names that we are familiar with to make the characters seem more real to us and to help us relate to (and define) the different cultures of the future more easily.
I think Tolkien was the first to do this. The character represented by the name Frodo Baggins, is actually Maura Labingi. That name means nothing to us and doesn't suggest the name of an english type country person so Tolkien provided us with Frodo Baggins as the name was more in keeping with the character. Pedro Cantor therefore might not even be his real name, just a representation of a person who we today picture when hearing the name.

Orc wasn't used the way we know till Tolkien did that, its acctuly a norse version of troll, alot of the current fantasy names of critters is either the old leged stuff from ancient days, rome and so on, or tolkien influnced.

Shaman wrote:I read in a book once, there was some old witch who to keep young bathed in childrens blood or something and she was refered to as a hormagaunt.

Obviously it was fiction..

Carnifex is latin for excutioner I believe.

It wasnt fiction... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory

ArbitorIan wrote:In other news, the Praetorian Guard (the old Zulu War-style Imperial Guard) are much more likely to be named after Pretoria, current capital of South Africa and an area previously involved in the Zulu wars, than named for the PrAEtorian Guard, from the Roman Army.

Or more likely they used the name praetorian guard because they're lazy and it sounds kind of cool.

Horus is actually the son of Osiris most of the time, not Ra.

Osiris is the king of the underworld, but not the king of the Egyptian gods as a whole.

Fyodor Karamazov got his name from "The Brothers Karamazov" a book by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Imperium is latin for The right to command.
Consuls and Praetors were part if the Roman Empire.
Imperator, Emperor

This is all from World History Class.

Lictor too, actually.

They were royal bodyguards or something.

Thor665 wrote:Just to add in one that (hopefully) most people are unaware of - Termagant.

French in origin, the dictionary definition is "A quarrelsome or overbearing woman. "

Draw from this whatever conclusions you may choose.

Termagant was the name of a dragon type monster in Jack Vance's The Dragon Masters, which is probably where GW got the name for Tyranids.

According to Wikipedia it was in early mediaeval times believed to be the name of the god of the Muslims. It is mentioned in the form Tervagan in the poem Chanson de Roland, which I am sure you are all familiar with.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Emmkay wrote:

ashrog wrote: You're both right. Apocalypse now was based on Heart of Darkness.

Ahh see I didn't know that, I confess I've never actually got round to reading the book.

Give it a go, it's only short.

Org wrote:Imperium is latin for The right to command.
Consuls and Praetors were part if the Roman Empire.
Imperator, Emperor

This is all from World History Class.

Imperium also means Empire in Latin. Convenient, eh?

crazypsyko666 wrote: (also sicarius is a kind of spider)

The word is actually one for a dagger, or a type of dagger