Ranaira Oranya – rah-nair-ah ohr-ah-nigh-ah

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Loneliness.

It clung to him like soot from a black smoke fire that turned his skin black and his thoughts blacker.

Of course, he wasn't really alone. He had friends back home who were likely waiting up for him, waiting for him to come down the mountain from his self-assigned exile. But Ranaira Oranya would not go back. He had already long overstayed his welcome among the house of Nelayfinwe.

No. The house of Maedhros.

Ranaira Oranya cursed the banishment of his mother tongue. The language of men confused him and the twists and turns of Sindarin knotted his tongue. Speech was never easy for him and the longer he remained alone in the mountains the harder speaking became. He remembered a time when someone spoke, and they were listened to. Now all he heard was single voices yelling out to be heard, but no one could hear them over their shouting. It was all such a racket. Ranaira Oranya much preferred the stillness of a star-lit sky and a cool, breezeless night where he could hear the single voice of all the stars in the great void above.

He was not alone when the stars shone, but they did not banish the growing emptiness inside him that spread outward not did they ease the solitude around him that bore down. He was caught between two great nothings, pressed thin as a water lily petal with no warm presence beside him to ease the pressure.

"Do you see how we have fallen, my kin? Do you hear how we bicker and fight? Do you know the sorrow of these first twilight years? Do you feel the weight of our misdeeds? There is no light bright enough by night or by day to drive away the darkness of our hearts."

He sat atop a boulder with his legs folded underneath him and looked out across the starlit mountains below and above. The snow chilled his knees and feet, but he was used to the cold. Far away, nearly out of sight rose a solitary mountain peak above the crowding shorter peaks. So high it rose that its very tip was bare of snow, bare of it glaring white covering shared by all the other mountains including the one Ranaira Oranya sat upon now.

In the valley below, where there was no snow to reflect the starlight, Ranaira Oranya could see only darkness and the singular light coming from the house of Maedhros. Even a light that close seemed dim compared to the pure brilliance silver stars filling the sky in their millions. Nowhere in the sky could Ranaira Oranya see only a single star. A star could never be lonely for it had thousands of brothers and sisters surrounding it, all making the night a little less dark.

The empty chasm in his chest expanded with breathless force.

"Are we so utterly alone in our darkness?" he asked the stars with little hope of being heard. "Can you not hear my pleas? My kin do not speak with you anymore, they do not hear your songs, they hear only war and ruin and wrath. They speak only of revenge. They will not listen to me. I am alone."

He hung his head and tears fell into the snow, creating small holes. Long he wept for his kin until his tears melted away the snow. Only when he opened his eyes did Ranaira Oranya see the bare rock covered now by his tears that slowly froze into a thin sheet of ice.

He stood and spoke once more.

"This mountain I will name Lonely Sorrow, for here I wept alone in sorrow for my kin."

Ranaira Oranya descended the mountain, but he did not return to the house of Maedhros. He wandered far north with only the cold and the silver stars to keep him company. As he left, Nienna came upon that place, for she sensed the great sorrow of the lone elf. She too wept upon the mountain of Lonely Sorrow and ever after, anyone who stood upon its side, wept for the fall of the elven kind.

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Lemme tell you something about the name Ranaira Oranya because it was a process to make and also because I want to because I'm a nerd.

I enjoyed it though. Very much.

Ranaira Oranya is made from two Quenya words:

Oira - eternal

and

Ranya - wanderer

Creative, I know.

Now, personally, when making names I like to combine words so they look like some form of hybrid between them, it is neither one word nor the other, but both working together to create something new.

Enough sentimentalities!

Needless to say, this takes some time to work out and make a unique name that sounds good and fits the character.

(Ignoring that I made the name before I knew what the character was like)

I start with just a basic combination. Literally putting the two words side by side.

Ranyaoira

Oiraranya

Now, for some reason I kind of liked how these two looked side by side. Mind you, I have no idea how it is pronounced yet. I'm going by aesthetic right now.

Ranyaoira Oiraranya

Looks cool huh?

Wait until I'm done.

So, I get annoyed when characters have really long names that are barely pronounceable. However, if that is their culture, I'll accept it, but I might give them a nickname in my head because names are hard. So now I'm looking to shorten his name a bit, make it easier, make it look cleaner if you will.

My first task is to take out any letters that make it look weird or letters I don't want in there. Initially I only took out the 'o' in Ranyaoira.

Ranyaira Oiraranya

After that, it was playtime I tried using an apostrophe to separate some of the vowels... also took out the 'y'.

Rana'ira Oiraranya

Didn't like it.

Ranaira Oiraranya

So, by now I'm liking Ranaira, but I don't really like Oiraranya. There's too much of something.

Too much repetition of the 'r' and 'a'. So I take the excess out and am left with

Ranaira Oiranya

Looks great!

How do I pronounce it?

I don't know the first thing about Quenya pronunciation. I spend a little time browsing the internet and eventually come up with a pronunciation.

Ranaira Oiranya
Rah-nair-ah oi-rah-nigh-ah

Now this sounds pretty cool to me and I repeat it in my head over and over while I make myself a sandwich. Eventually I realize I'm omiting the 'oi' and opting for an 'oh' sound, which I like better. I am also naturally wanting to move the 'n' back a bit. I also later change the sound of the "or" in Oranya.

Thus:

Ranaira Oranya
Rah-nair-ah ohr-ah-nigh-ah

My new character name hot off the press.

Below you will see a condensed version of how I created the name going from the complete version down to the basic words I used.

Ranaira Oiranya
Rah-nair-ah oi-rah-nigh-ah

Ranaira Oranya
Ranaira Oiranya
Ranaira Oiraranya
Rana'ira Oiraranya
Ranaira Oiraranya
Ranyaira Oiraranya
Ranyaoira Oiraranya
Oiraranya
Ranyaoira
Oira - eternal
Ranya - wanderer

I don't know exactly where I picked up this method of naming characters. Might have read something somewhere. I've heard of just mashing your hand on the keyboard and working with what comes up...

Barbaric.

I prefer to have some meaning behind the words I choose to name my characters. Also, mashing keys has never helped me in anything.