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I think Warmaster Slaydo has to be up there. Like Greedo from Star Wars: A New Hope, except that instead of being greedy, he slays.

Lion El'Jonson is also a goofy one, especially for a Primarch.

It also cracks me up that there's a planet called Luther Macintyre. It almost sounds like an Administratum bureaucrat made a mistake while filling out the planet's paperwork when it was first added to the Imperium's census books, and put the name of the planet's discoverer or governor in the field intended for the planet's name.

.

Birmingham

There's good goofy and bad goofy in 40k, though GW in more modern times tends to lean towards the latter sadly.

Good goofy are things like Ferrus Manus, Bile's ship- the Vesalius, the planet Scalex VI, home to Wazzdakka Gutsmek, Orkemedies, many of the new Necromunda characters etc.

Then you have the bad goofy ones like Canis Wolfborn (which is fine on his own, it's when everything else is took into account), Murderfang, found on the planet OMNICIDE!, Krullagh the Vile, a daft name yet with a good goofy name for her kabal- the all female Emasculators.

 Grimtuff wrote:
There's good goofy and bad goofy in 40k, though GW in more modern times tends to lean towards the latter sadly.

Good goofy are things like Ferrus Manus, Bile's ship- the Vesalius, the planet Scalex VI, home to Wazzdakka Gutsmek, Orkemedies, many of the new Necromunda characters etc.

Then you have the bad goofy ones like Canis Wolfborn (which is fine on his own, it's when everything else is took into account), Murderfang, found on the planet OMNICIDE!, Krullagh the Vile, a daft name yet with a good goofy name for her kabal- the all female Emasculators.

I have to ask, why is Ferrus Manus good goofy, but Krullagh the Vile not? Ferrus Manus is so much worse (IMO) than a pun on Cruella de Vil.

It sometimes feels like old names, while just as goofy and ridiculous, get a free pass because they were around longer.

But all Ork names are great. That is beyond question.

A lot, if not all of the planets in the Ciaphas Cain novels.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Simia_Orichalcae = Brass Monkies. A U.K. term for cold temperatures.

And being a 40K pastiche of the Flashman novels, a spin-off of Tom Brown’s School Dayd, a rival Commissar called Tomas Beije

All sorts of nod and a wink naming conventions and wordplay.

Does Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau count?

One that I forgot in my first post—the realm of Ultramar, which coincidentally happens to share its name with a Canadian gas company that operates many gas stations all over Quebec. I suppose this wouldn't sound goofy to people from other countries/areas, but to a Quebec-born person like myself, it's as if a region of the Imperium were called Chevron.

 Gert wrote:
Birmingham

I always found that joke funny, but its not a joke that travels well now GW is a global company

Also, not 40K, but WHFB…

Middenheim.

Heim I understand to be German for Town, possibly City. I don’t speak it, don’t sue me.

Midden? A Midden is where you put the refuse. Including poop.

Pooptown. Middenheim is Pooptown.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also, not 40K, but WHFB…

Middenheim.

Heim I understand to be German for Town, possibly City. I don’t speak it, don’t sue me.

Midden? A Midden is where you put the refuse. Including poop.

Pooptown. Middenheim is Pooptown.

Where there's muck there's brass.

And if you’re really lucky, Mucky Brasses.

Erm….

I’ll see myself out.

 Haighus wrote:
I always found that joke funny, but its not a joke that travels well now GW is a global company

Truly a relic of a better age.

The reference in The Traitor’s Hand to the popular holo character Arbitrator Foreboding.

A knowing reference to Judge Dredd.

A satire of a satire, referencing another satire.

Magnifique!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also, not 40K, but WHFB…

Middenheim.

Heim I understand to be German for Town, possibly City. I don’t speak it, don’t sue me.

Midden? A Midden is where you put the refuse. Including poop.

Pooptown. Middenheim is Pooptown.

Heim is close to home.
Middenheim in German sounds like a low german word that could mean "home/ village in the middle". This may sound like a "well ackshully..." post, but I think your version is indeed funny.
On a related note, Guilliman in German sounds like Güllemann or Gullimann, and "Gülle" is... well dictionary says "liquid manure", while "Gulli"
means drain...

All that aside Iron Hands with his iron hands from the iron hands chapter is still one of the goofiest names and easily on par with Murderfang.

Random german names in 40K are usually something to chuckle as well.
Rein&Raus (in&out), Nachmund (after mouth), Krieg (war).
Also, Zahndrekh sounds like "tooth dirt" in German.

Murderfang from the planet Murder with his Murderclaws and Murderlust was the point where I couldn't take GW seriously anymore.

The old parodies of stuff were kind of cheesy - Sly Marbo (Rambo) for instance, but if you didn't get the reference then they didn't seem that bad. Ferrus Mannus (Iron Man) is probably the worst of those, though.

To be fair, Bretonnia was based on Mediaeval France and the Empire on Germany, so having lots of Germanic sounding names isn't bad and there are all sorts of examples of places having really boring names that translate to something like "river hill" or "river town", so "middletown isn't that bad".

Murder McMurderface is just horrific though, like really bad tween fanfiction.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also, not 40K, but WHFB…

Middenheim.

Heim I understand to be German for Town, possibly City. I don’t speak it, don’t sue me.

Midden? A Midden is where you put the refuse. Including poop.

Pooptown. Middenheim is Pooptown.

Heim is close to home.
Middenheim in German sounds like a low german word that could mean "home/ village in the middle". This may sound like a "well ackshully..." post, but I think your version is indeed funny.
On a related note, Guilliman in German sounds like Güllemann or Gullimann, and "Gülle" is... well dictionary says "liquid manure", while "Gulli"
means drain...

All that aside Iron Hands with his iron hands from the iron hands chapter is still one of the goofiest names and easily on par with Murderfang.

Random german names in 40K are usually something to chuckle as well.
Rein&Raus (in&out), Nachmund (after mouth), Krieg (war).
Also, Zahndrekh sounds like "tooth dirt" in German.

To get the pedantry over with, 'Heim' in current german is indeed used to refer to home, but in the sense of 'Old peoples home' or 'Home for the criminally insane'. Its more archaic use to refer to one homestead or dwelling fell out of use at the beginning of the 20th century, but you would still be understood if you used it today. Also, somewhat confusingly, 'Heimat' is a word in active use that means 'home' in the sense of 'home country' or 'home city', and 'Ich gehe heim' is still a phrase people use when they e.g. leave a party or sth. to go home. 'Er/sie ist heimgegangen' is a phrase that's somewhat commonly used in obituaries, in that case referring to someone going 'home' to their eternal home in the house of the Lord ofc.

The ending -heim in city or village names historically referred to settlements that were the residence of well-known people, often nobles or other persons of repute, and place names like 'Bischofsheim' would literally mean 'home of the bishop' and so on. It's also completely parallel to the toponym -ham that's very common in England and parts of the United States

For quite some time, Rouboute Guilliman was confusingly called Rouboute Guillaume in german-translated publications without any explanation, about for as lang as Dreadnoughts were called 'Cybots' and Genestealers 'Symbionten' - they changed that in the mid-2010s.

As to the random names, one of the antagonists in the classic Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay adventures was a demon called Zahnarzt, which is the german word for dentist

Thank you for Sgt Cortez and Tsagulasa for their corrections.

Particularly as it made it even funnier.

Middenheim - Crap Madhouse. And indeed funnier and filthier takes I’m not even gonna try to get away with on Dakka!

As others have mentioned I feel this prize needs to go to the rabid dreadnought found upon planet Omnicide, who's Murderlust drives him to murder enemies with his Murderclaws.

Two reasons; one because it is so bad its funny, two because the writers clearly did not care and did not put an appropriate (or any) effort into writing his backstory. It is just a paragraph of dumped words to justify the model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also, not 40K, but WHFB…

Middenheim.

Heim I understand to be German for Town, possibly City. I don’t speak it, don’t sue me.

Midden? A Midden is where you put the refuse. Including poop.

Pooptown. Middenheim is Pooptown.

Considering how locations and towns were generally named in the middle ages, and considering Middenheim, I don't find the name particularly inappropriate.

Hey I never said it was inappropriate. I bloody love a pun, me. And early Warhammer is a trove of such.

I mean, Sigmar’s surname being Heldenhammer. Thanks to Apocalyptically’s cover of Bowie’s “Heroes”, with German vocals by Rammstein’s Till Lindermann, I know Helden translates to Hero.

Sigmar Herohammer is the literal, non-contextual translation. And given WHFB reputation for being Hero Hammer? Well!

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
As others have mentioned I feel this prize needs to go to the rabid dreadnought found upon planet Omnicide, who's Murderlust drives him to murder enemies with his Murderclaws.

The dreadnougt obviously, obviously being named Murderfang, as well

Considering how locations and towns were generally named in the middle ages, and considering Middenheim, I don't find the name particularly inappropriate.

The literal next village over from where i live is named Altdorf Middenheim could just be a normal city name around here, it would not raise any eyebrows at all.

Nemesis DOOMfist

Heim must be cognate with the common english place name ending of ham (as found in names like Birmingham and Nottingham, for topical examples related to posts in this thread). It also means homestead in old english.

 Haighus wrote:
Heim must be cognate with the common english place name ending of ham (as found in names like Birmingham and Nottingham, for topical examples related to posts in this thread). It also means homestead in old english.

To be fair, modern English is the end result of following other languages down dark alleys and mugging them for loose grammar.

As a Finn, I find Kulliman the derpiest by far. Gives him a real douchbag feel straight off the bat

Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands has always been the goofiest to me

The recent updates to the Enemy Within campaign had the authors talking about the "bad" puns they included : )

Of course, we had neither the time nor the skills to develop languages in the way that Tolkien did, so we relied on a kind of pidgin
German plus terrible puns when it came to naming people and places. The ‘Drakwald Forest,’ for example, was named as a joke.
A colleague at the time was making fun of our naming conventions, suggesting that all we did was swap around the letters in an
English word and combine them with a German one. So, the ‘Dark Forest’ became ‘Drak’ plus the German word for forest (‘Wald’).

In universe - Middenheim is supposed to be a version of a Dwarf word that means "Watch tower in the middle place".

 Mr Morden wrote:
The recent updates to the Enemy Within campaign had the authors talking about the "bad" puns they included : )

Of course, we had neither the time nor the skills to develop languages in the way that Tolkien did, so we relied on a kind of pidgin
German plus terrible puns when it came to naming people and places. The ‘Drakwald Forest,’ for example, was named as a joke.
A colleague at the time was making fun of our naming conventions, suggesting that all we did was swap around the letters in an
English word and combine them with a German one. So, the ‘Dark Forest’ became ‘Drak’ plus the German word for forest (‘Wald’).

In universe - Middenheim is supposed to be a version of a Dwarf word that means "Watch tower in the middle place".

Even though some of them are punny, the names in the Empire feel surprisingly normal to a native speaker - it's not obviously ''faux german'' which usually stands out like a sore thumb, especially stuff like noble titles or location names. Warhammer always got that right somehow.

-Guardsman- wrote:

Lion El'Jonson is also a goofy one, especially for a Primarch.
.

I wouldn't call it goofy, but it's definitely borrowed from history:

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-dark-angel-2/

Crispy78 wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:

Lion El'Jonson is also a goofy one, especially for a Primarch.
.

I wouldn't call it goofy, but it's definitely borrowed from history:

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-dark-angel-2/

Borrowed!! It’s goofy as feck. As is Corvus corax of the raven guard. And Kayvaan Shrike, as bad as all the wolfy names. And Sanguinius. There are s9me really poor names out there.

Ferrus Manus is bad, but I can let it go as a weird relic of a long dead language in high gothic. Same goes for Corvus Corax.

Space Wolves are rife with terrible names, but they've been flanderised to the extreme anyway.

Angron the angry probably takes the cake.