OK, here's the deal: The villain of my story had been named Fertag, but that sounded too much like Murtagh (from Eragon) so I changed it to Zrolla. Since he is from a country that is based off of Tibet, I wanted his name to have some meaning in Tibetan. The closest thing I could find was Dzolha. since Dzo means 'master' and 'Lha' means God. But that could still be hard to pronounce...In Portuguese I know the 'lh' sound isn't hard to pronounce at all; I've used it all the time, but for American readers that might throw them a loop...(Dzol-ha is how English speakers would think it.) Are there any Portuguese or Spanish speakers on here that know the 'lh' sound and want to suggest an alternative? (Think like 'palha' in Portuguese or Spanish) Maybe a double l? Dzolla?

I still don't really like the sound of Dzolla since it sounds too much like Zaciré, which is the name of my MC (I'm averse to using too many Z's), so I'm willing to abandon the meaning of that if I must, but only if I find a better name. I would like one that has Lha in it, or Dzo, since they do have Tibetan meaning, but mostly I just want a name that sounds evil.

UPDATE: I chose 'Srugoz' as the final name...and I'll be using this thread to share a little bit more about the villain, his background, etc.

eruheran

P.S. For those of you in the Character Introduction thread...will it be too confusing if I change my villain name?

I liked the name Zrolla But if you don't like the way it sounds, you can try to mix it up a bit... like maybe Dvolla, Dvollar?

I don't think it's confusing.. I have to change a few things in my story too, but didn't introduce my characters Im changing yet

That's so weird, I actually thought of Dvolha (Dv-oh-lya) as a possibility but scrapped it because of the pronunciation, but I guess great minds think alike. I actually don't like Zrolla because of the two Z's (there's one in Zaciré) too and I want to differentiate between the two...but I might stick with it.

Yeah, I introduced him because I needed someone to argue with my MC's, but I knew he wasn't finalized so he'd probably change a lot. He might not even end up being human, but hopefully he'll be at least humanoid.

Maybe Dvollar, though that doesn't sound super evil.

eruheran

OK, I think I've officially decided. After rooting through my Tibetan dictionary (the country which Fertag/Zrolla controls is based on Tibet/China) on my computer, I've settled on the name Srugoz, which, loosely translated, is a mixup of the words 'evil demon' (Srul) and 'fallen' (Zragoz). What do you guys think?

eruheran

Well...it definitely sounds evil! For some reason it's reminding me of Gog and Magog in the bible.

But that connotation could be really good for a villain, so I think it's perfect!

I know, I about jumped out of my chair when I thought of it, since it sounded evil! Usually all my villains' names sound really lame...

eruheran