A group name for "classic" fantasy races

[Toomanysorrows]

In the setting I'm writing about, you have monster girls on the one hand, diametrically opposed to humans, elves, dwarfs and halflings. Since they're two broad factions I regularly need to have some way of referring to these factions in their entirety. That's easy with the monster girls, I just call them monsters, but I just haven't been able to find a similar name for the other side.

The alternatives I'd considered were:

- just use humans or humanity as a pars pro toto, or maybe even rewrite the others as subspecies of humans but... well then what's the point of having the other three there in the first place?

- mortals or humanoids: those are often used in other fantasy settings for this but the monster girls also usually fall under those categories.

- An alternative I'd used earlier was calling them the High God's children (since that's who created them) but that's both very wordy and sounds very mystical and formal, so it's not useful in a lot of contexts.

So I figured I'd ask: does anyone here maybe have some ideas for a name for those groups?

 

[Napelynn]

Humanity --> Manity

 

[witch_sorrowful]

There's nothing wrong to take it from an inspiration. From Tolkien, take Edain and change it into Edani. There you go.

 

[Draconite]

Child of men

 

[Agentt]

A concept I often use is monster, demon and devils.
Devils being sentiment races who can use magic, like batsmen or elves and all.
Demons are animals who enforced with magic, eg dragons, elemental
Monsters are balloons filled with magic which drop loot when defeated.
For humanity, I usually use Ingis, which is basically a mispronounce of English.

 

[Greydra]

The monster girls can be considered both monsters and part of humanoids, but the other half doesn't like that last fact, so they would either refer to themselves as something else, or perhaps they do not treat the monster girls as part of humanity and think themselves are the "real humanoids".

The question is whenever the plot is about the monster girls recognize themselves as humanoids or not. If they do, but the other party, humans and elves and such, does not recognize it, then the plot could be that the monster girls form some sorta resistance or revolution-party to be acknowledged as "humanoids".
If they don't care, then I think it's cool to limit "humanoids" to the humans (and others) while having some professor-guy or something explain to the MC or the readers that the monster-girls technically qualifies as humanoids, but they never went out and referred to themselves as that.

 

[Kilolo]

Nigga

Spoiler: why?

 

[Deleted member 26725]

In the setting I'm writing about, you have monster girls on the one hand, diametrically opposed to humans, elves, dwarfs and halflings. Since they're two broad factions I regularly need to have some way of referring to these factions in their entirety. That's easy with the monster girls, I just call them monsters, but I just haven't been able to find a similar name for the other side.

The alternatives I'd considered were:

- just use humans or humanity as a pars pro toto, or maybe even rewrite the others as subspecies of humans but... well then what's the point of having the other three there in the first place?

- mortals or humanoids: those are often used in other fantasy settings for this but the monster girls also usually fall under those categories.

- An alternative I'd used earlier was calling them the High God's children (since that's who created them) but that's both very wordy and sounds very mystical and formal, so it's not useful in a lot of contexts.

So I figured I'd ask: does anyone here maybe have some ideas for a name for those groups?

Humans —> Wise-Ones
Lizardmen —> Reptilians

 

[Daitengu]

In the past with often human centric views, the other humanoid races were called demi-humans. In less ego-centric equally powered stories Elfs, Dwarfs, Halflings and the like were just "the races".

In more recent times demi-humans were the beastkin races. Still waiting for the day Primate-kin or Ape-kin gets used when referring to humans.

Really, it depends on who's doing the labeling and which race has been dominant the longest. If Elfs have been dominant, they may have trended demi-elfs to refer to humans, dwarfs, etc.

PS, the plural of Elf before Tolkien was Elfs. Same with Dwarfs.

 

[hauntedwritings]

There's nothing wrong with coming up with your entirely own name for races. For instance, as has been mentioned, the common race names are very human-centric. What humans named the races. (E.g. Beast-kin, Cat-kin. Do you really think, they would call themselves cat-kin, if given the choice? Would WE call ourselves Ape-kin over humans?)

If you have a large collection of individuals, I think you should call them by:
1. A self-given race name, if they are all considered the same race.
2. A faction-name, if it's a collection of several races. (Think Something Alliance/Pact/Covenant, blabla.)

 

[JayDirex]

exceed

 

[Titanoktonon]

Yadda yadda yadda joke about this being Tolkeinism for trying to represent all races/species.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Sapiens

Wisdom - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[BenJepheneT]

I'd do the grouping from the POV of EVERY FUCKEN RACE I'll be having in my fantasy story, just in case I ever want to write from the perspective of another race. It'll lend itself more towards the realism, since some dwarfs probably won't be as glad when being regarded as "humanoids". I don't know what kinda dwarfs you're writing but if you're taking the Middle Earth inspiration, I doubt those prideful midgets are gonna take that HUMAN comparison lightly.

You could still refer to them as humanoids but I'd recommend diversifying the terminologies and add some on the other side of the fence too. The dwarfs can also group the humans with other races under their own name as well. Not only would it give more flair towards the race it won't make it seem like the world is basically middle-age earth with deformed people walking around. As an example they could group humans together with elves as a community of tall people that can reach towards high cupboards and need to crouch when entering a cave. Call them Lanks or something. They could also have another name for the halflings as well. If they're the brutish, straight-to-the-point kind of dwarfs, they'll probably call em Cunts.

 

[WasatchWind]

In the setting I'm writing about, you have monster girls on the one hand, diametrically opposed to humans, elves, dwarfs and halflings. Since they're two broad factions I regularly need to have some way of referring to these factions in their entirety. That's easy with the monster girls, I just call them monsters, but I just haven't been able to find a similar name for the other side.

The alternatives I'd considered were:

- just use humans or humanity as a pars pro toto, or maybe even rewrite the others as subspecies of humans but... well then what's the point of having the other three there in the first place?

- mortals or humanoids: those are often used in other fantasy settings for this but the monster girls also usually fall under those categories.

- An alternative I'd used earlier was calling them the High God's children (since that's who created them) but that's both very wordy and sounds very mystical and formal, so it's not useful in a lot of contexts.

So I figured I'd ask: does anyone here maybe have some ideas for a name for those groups?

You could always try conglanging. Also, the name "the high God's children" is interesting. You just need to come up with a more casual term.

 

[Agentt]

Nigga

Spoiler: why?

I like how everyone just decided to ignore you.

 

[hauntedwritings]

I like how everyone just decided to ignore you.

The greatest insult is to be ignored. In some cases, it's simply deserved.

On another note, I forgot to provide a suggestion. Normally when I look for names, I look for existing human names. They can provide a sort of familiar-yet-fresh meaning. For instance, High God's Children? My suggestion would be Rahmareli, Rah-Mareli. Rahm meaning High, Areli meaning Lion of God.

As a tool, I use Babynames.com for this purpose. They have an advanced search, that lets you search with names whose meaning contains certain words (in this case high, and god).

 

[Agentt]

The greatest insult is to be ignored. In some cases, it's simply deserved.

On another note, I forgot to provide a suggestion. Normally when I look for names, I look for existing human names. They can provide a sort of familiar-yet-fresh meaning. For instance, High God's Children? My suggestion would be Rahmareli, Rah-Mareli. Rahm meaning High, Areli meaning Lion of God.

As a tool, I use Babynames.com for this purpose. They have an advanced search, that lets you search with names whose meaning contains certain words (in this case high, and god).

Can you reccomend some such sites which also have the feature to scroll through years too. Lile, if I want to find the most popular name in 18th century.

 

[LinMeili]

It depends on the flavor you want to impart to the name. For example, "Elder races" is fairly neutral since it just says they are older. However, one could also call them "the Chosen" or "the Blessed Ones" if one wanted to emphasize that they view themselves as superior.

 

[hauntedwritings]

Can you reccomend some such sites which also have the feature to scroll through years too. Lile, if I want to find the most popular name in 18th century.

Nothing that I can find that is extensive. There is a site called babynameswizard.com, but it doesn't go further back than 1880s, and only limited to what appears to be handful of english names.
Sadly, I can't provide better advice than the following.

If you are looking for names from a specific era, I think the best way is simply read through specific articles (from wikipedia for instance) from said place and time, and look what names come across.
18th century? Look at american or french revolution, if you're looking for western names. See what names of people and places come across. Mix em up a little.