Arcaii wrote:List of Most Common (and Poorly Designed) Prefixes and Suffixes!
These names I get a lot, and I really don't feel like explaining my reasons for not liking them over and over and over. Most of these are quoted from actual reviews I've done.
Brokenheart: I've gotten this name enough times that it deserves its own spot. The bottom line is that naming a cat something like this is not only useless, but cruel. Usually, the cats are named after losing someone they love, as if the leader decided that a constant reminder that they lost someone near and dear was a great idea.
How would you feel if you lost a sister or your mother, for example, and instead of letting you grieve and get on with life, your family said, "Well, you're clearly distraught still, so we're going to take you over to the courts and get your name changed to Evergrieve, to show how pathetic and sad you are"?
Cats will lose their loved ones. That is Clan life; work and eat and fight until you die. Death is such a normal thing for them (they kill every day for their meal!), and yes, cats will be affected. They will be sad and hurt for a long time. But they can't let it define them.
Hollow-: The thing with Hollow- is simply this: what on earth does it mean? How am I supposed to know what a cat is like from Hollow-? Are they a dull, empty sort (which is mean to name a cat for)? Are they supposed to be a dark color (which they rarely are)? It doesn't make any sense. Also, this name is sometimes used with "-heart" to sound poetic, but please, for the love of God, don't do that. There is no reason for this name to exist.
Striking-/-strike: What -strike tries to accomplish is already taken care of by -claw and -fang. That's all that really needs to be said on this particular name.
Spirit-/-spirit: Calling a kit Spirit- is akin to calling them Star- or Moon-. It's useless because it describes absolutely nothing about the kit themselves, and naming a cat after something considered sacred is extreme taboo, because it's putting the cat on a pedestal they don't belong even close to. That, and even if it was to mean something related to their belief system or personality, they don't get a name like that at birth and it isn't at all worth a rename.
-fall: This suffix has no use whatsoever. If it's supposed to mean a clumsy cat, that's unnecessary and mean. If it somehow means graceful, I'm probably going to throw you out a window.
Echo-/-echo: Echo- is an unaccepted name, primarily due to its unreliability. Echo-, to my knowledge, is mostly used to describe a cat that looks similar to a dead one, which, honestly, is pretty ruttin' unfair and cruel. The name Echo- says, "You look like some other cat, so we're going to name you for that. No, you don't get to grow into your own person, you look to much like whatever cat we named you for. You're not special enough to have your own name."
Soul-/-soul: Basically the same mess as -spirit. Just don't do it.
-wing: -wing doesn't really work due to the fact that cats don't have wings, and if you wanted to call them fast (-foot) or an agile climber (-tail) in a fancier way, it'd still be pretty useless.
Feather-/-feather: As a descriptor, it's useless. Feathers can be any color, shape, or size, and even if they were to suggest a personality type like "soft and gentle", it would still fail due to feathers coming in many varieties besides downy.
-song/-call/-voice: -song doesn't pass, for a couple reasons: cats do not know what music is (we've never heard them talking about it or preforming it), and even if they did, I'm not sure that -song would be an acceptable suffix. Suffixes are used to describe a useful skill the cat has (or just their appearance if there's nothing too special about them), and I don't know if the ability to sing or have a lovely voice would be too useful unless it was a very important part of their culture, like a story-teller or something.
Tangle-/Tangled-: Tangle- does not describe a cat in a way that is useful. It doesn't say anything other than "messy fur" (which isn't much of a compliment), or "clumsy" (also not a compliment).
Moon: Moon- is, in and of itself, a name that no cat deserves. The moon is a very sacred object to the Clans - they have the Moonstone (later Moonpool), it's used during Gatherings to tell whether StarClan is upset with the cats or not, and for the longest time the Hunters even agreed that the name was not allowed on any cat (see how well that went). It's like naming your cat Sun- or Star-. You just don't do it.
Sun: The sun is a very important fixture in the Clan's life, like the moon and stars, and those are also not allowed, as they're considered sacred by the cats. Though we picture the sun as yellow (and science does indeed confirm that it's yellow), taking a look into the sun will only sport you a blinding white light and you'll see spots for a few minutes.
Name that Alludes to the Eyes: Eye names don't work, mostly because it's a huge risk. Cats don't open their eyes until they're three weeks old
(AND YOUR CAT'S MOTHER WILL NOT WAIT THAT LONG EVER, THE CLAN WILL NOT ALLOW IT SO DON'T EVEN TRY THAT ON ME FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING), and they're blue for a while, before changing colors. You can never guarantee that the eyes will be one color or the other. Plus, that's a very small part of the body to name someone for, don't you think? (Excluding, of course, names that refer to missing or otherwise damaged eyes)
Flame-: Flames are insignificant compared to a fire, which is larger and much more obvious. There's no need for a second prefix having to do with fire.
-frost: -frost is a pretty unflattering name. It implies a cold, distant cat with little concern for others or compassion. This is the exact opposite of a cat you'd want in a Clan. Suffixes are meant to represent the positive sides of a cat, not the negative.
-flame/-fire/-blaze: The opposite of -frost. -fire can easily be considered a negative suffix. A fire is something that destroys, kills, and ruins, and it implies an overly-aggressive, wild and fierce cat who destroys everyone and everything they come across. Someone named after a fire is someone that is probably not a desirable cat to have in a Clan. While you can excuse it as a prefix on the grounds that it's to describe the pelt, rather than the cat itself, that's what the prefix is for.
Pool-/-pool: Pools come in many shapes, sizes, and colors, and not all of them are similar. You can have a brown, muddy pool with thousands of frogs, you can have a blue pool that hides how deep it really is, you can have a green, plant-infested pool with fish constantly splashing around the surface. If one was to argue that -pool means a wise, deep cat, I'd really have to ask why it does. With -storm, it's clear that their personality is wild and unpredictable, much like an actual storm. Flowers are most common in the spring, when everything blooms and babies are born, and they give sustenance to insects before breeding, so even that has a solid grounding. But -pool doesn't really have a reason for being. Pools are small bodies of water that easily freeze over, and rarely change, staying in one place without movement. That's not exactly the picture of wiseness.
Wolf: Wolves come
in a lot of colors, too many to count as a possible prefix. And, y'know, there is the fact that there are no wolves in England, where most fan-Clans live. And even if there were, trust me when I say that the cats are going to have a lot more to worry about than just what kind of color means Wolf-.
Amber-: The term for the color comes from the ore itself, which is found in rocks and not out in English grasslands. I know it sounds pretty, but it's like Jet-; if the cats aren't seeing them, they won't use the color names.
Dragon/Vampire/Mythical Creature: If it's human created, it's not going to show up in the cat world. That's the rule. Mythology especially.
Named for the Weather They Were Born in: Weather. Does not. Matter. Unless. The cat. Is the same color. As the weather they were born in. No Thunders, no Stormys, nothing. Stop sending these in. I'm tired of them.
Lake/Mountain/Arctic/Forest/Large Territory Names: Naming a cat for an entire environment such as Marsh- or Mountain- is a bad idea, largely because there is a lot in every environment. Even deserts and tundras have a large variety of wildlife, and not all of them look the same. You're basically calling your cat Dog- or Cat-.
Named for One Small Trait: Long teeth, born with a stumpy tail, folded ears, etc. A cat's fur color is going to stand out far more than their ears or teeth or whatever. If they were born like that, it doesn't matter.
-flight: The basics follow -wing: it's something cats can't really do, and if it wanted to say a fast cat or agile climber, it's covered by -foot and -tail.
Gem-Based Names: Shoutout to Emerald, possibly the most overly popular name in all of the fanbase. The thing with these names is that a cat in the wild
anywhere isn't going to know what a gem is. Gems don't show up on the ground randomly, with perhaps the exception of quartz, and even then that's in very specific areas (mostly in California, if my information is correct). They generally have to be mined from deep underground, past where any living thing is going to be, and are polished and cut to look as they do. Unlike, say, Golden-, which is a regular color description, cats aren't likely to look at eyes and say, "You know, these really look like topaz or citrine, let's name her for that."
Moss-: Moss, generally, tends to be a rich green color. The only sort of moss that's brown is dead moss, and it's not recommended to name your cat after a dead plant. There is a type of moss that grows white flowers, but it doesn't appear to grow where a Clan might be, so we'll have to wait for deliberation on that.
Flower-/Petal-/-petal: Basically, Flower- and Petal- aren't descriptive enough - names that are flower-based (Dandelion-, Lily-) describe an actual color, but the sole name Flower- doesn't tell me anything about how the cat looks. -petal seems like a rip-off of -flower, and redundant suffixes or prefixes aren't even a thing.
-gaze: The best this name would imply is that the cat spends a lot of time staring at others. Which is creepy, and weird, and not necessary to name.
Hawk-: Technically speaking, there are two types of hawks in England - the Goshawk and the Sparrowhawk. Goshawk- is its own prefix in some circles, but Sparrowhawk couldn't be used for the simple fact that it's a compound word (like Dragonfly-, Strawberry-, and Sunflower-), and thus makes the name sound awkward as it's supposed to be a compound all on its own, plus the gender differences in this species make for an inconsistent and vague name. Shortening it to Hawk- also doesn't work because that would both assume that it was the only hawk breed around the area (which it wouldn't be) and that it would open up a myriad of names to be altered (Bumblebees are a thing, so it would be shortened to Bumble-, which doesn't work because it doesn't directly say what animal it's based on).
Now, as the books went on, the Hunters shifted the land to have some North American input, which allowed for panthers and mountain ranges that you wouldn't find in England. Traditionalism takes specifically only from the first series for this reason. Along with this, they established the name Hawk- for a dark brown tabby cat, since there are hawks that look like that.
The only problem is that they chose to ignore the fact that North America has 14 different species of hawks, and all of them look different. Even an American Clan couldn't use Hawk- for the simple reason that there's far too many possibilities for colors to mean anything.
Creek-/Pond-/River-/Sea-/Lake-/Brook-/etc: Does it never occur to people that water is transparent and doesn't have a physical color, no matter what we associate it with? I just...I don't know. Water names are a bad idea.
Adjective Names (Misty-, Running-, Silent-):
