What should be the name?

[KillHailMary]

Hello guys, as you know Everending Nightmare showed on its demo that we have about two main characters, so far.
The question is, what do you think their name should be? If you can give some explanation to why, please do!

Disclosure: This is just for curiosity, what the character's names, whatever it will be, will be no way affected because of this.

[slashgear29]

Thomas and Gabrielle in The Smith Manor sounds great
it's a great reminder for the hours before pledging time is over

[Grabthehoopka]

I was thinking about that upon looking at the kickstarter tiers, and I decided to turn to good ol' fashioned western mythology for ideas.

For the Male character, I have a few ideas -

-Murphy, after Morpheus, the Roman god of dreams
-Sam, after Somnus, the Roman personification of sleep (think "the sandman", or, like, some kind of sleep cupid).
-Damon, after Endymion, a figure in Greek mythology that was in love with Selene, goddess of the moon, and who was cursed by Zeus to sleep eternally, but was given the ability to sleep with his eyes open by Hypnos (Greek version of -Somnus, see above), so that he could look at her even while he slept.
-Damon could also work with Deimos, the personification of fear and dread. Can't really think of a name for his twin, Phobos, personification of terror and panic, though.
-Morgan or Maurice, after Moros, the personification of impending doom, who is commonly associated with depression (Moros is where we get the word "morose" from, after all).

The female character is a little harder to come up with since Matt's keeping her ultimate role in the story and the game close to his chest, but... -

-Karen or Carrie after the Keres, personifications of violent or horrible death. Basically, the Greeks didn't just have a grim reaper equivalent, they had a whole death bureaucracy. First, the Miroi, the "sisters of fate", measured out the entire life of a person upon their birth. Then, Moros (see above) drove that person onward to their inevitable death, where they were taken off to the underworld by Thanatos or the Keres. Thanatos was the god of peaceful, dignified death. The Keres were terrifying half-bird-half-women that flocked to battlefields like vultures and preyed upon the mortally wounded. They were also associated with terminal illness, and were said to swarm around areas infected with the plague.
-Dolores, after, well, the Dolores, the Roman personifications of pain and grief, Lupa, Ania, and Achus.
-Anna after Ananke, the ancient, primeval Greek goddess of necessity, inevitability, and compulsion.

And these are the Greek and Roman things that I WISH I could derive normal names from -

-Maniae, Roman Insania, personifications of madness and insanity
-Oizys, Roman Miseria, female personification of misery, suffering, and distress
-Horcus, Roman Jusjurandum, Orcus to all you D&D nerds out there, male personification of oaths and leveler of punishment upon breakers of said oaths.
-Hormes, the female personification of impulse, effort, and taking action/starting a task
-Epiales, the male personification of nightmares. It should be noted that there were like a thousand different personifications of dreaming, and Epiales, the "black dream" was THE personification of nightmares, and he did so by "assaulting" sleepers. Interpret that how you will.
-Ate (pronounced "ah-teh", not "eight", I don't know how to type accents), Roman Error, female personification of delusion, infatuation, blind folly, rash action, and reckless impulse, who "led men down the path to ruin".
-Penthos, Roman Luctus, male personification of grief, mourning, and lamentation
-Phrike, Latin Horror, female personification of, you guessed it, horror, and "the trembling fear". If Deimos and Phobos are like Jason Voorhees, then Phrike is like SUPER Jason from Jason X.
-Poine, Roman Ultio, female personification of revenge, punishment, and recompense.
-Praxidike, Roman Praxidice, goddess of justice.

So those are just some things I'm throwing out there. But yeah, I think naming them after those wonderful backers is a better idea than all this. Maybe last names?

[Hellblazer1138]

One Idea that I had for the female character, Lyssa. She was the spirit of mad rage, frenzy and rabies in animals. It's close enough to Lisa that you could keep it as is.
In keeping with the greek myth theme, and besides all the excellent choices above(Damon being my favorite), you could go with Dennis for the male character, which is derived from Dionysus, god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy.

I've also been trying to find some names from novels by Philip K. Dick, a writer whose main question was "What is reality?" and wrote a lot about mental disorders.
I only found 2 that could work, both from Martian Time-Slip; Manfred, an autistic boy who can see into and possibly change the future. Or Jack, the main protagonist who is schizophrenic.

[matt]

Philip K. Dick is my VERY favorite author. I've read all of his books... Well.. I am currently working on reading his Exegesis, which is 1000 pages long of very dense theological ideas. hahah. I've read all his novels and short stories I guess I should say.

I'm probably going to go with Thomas and Gabrielle just because I really like the idea of incorporating part of the story of how the game came to be in the actual game, but it's clear that you guys have put way more thought into it than I have. I'll definitely give these thought.

I can't use Karen though because that's the name of my sister, which would be kinda weird. haha

-Matt

[Hellblazer1138]

He is one of my absolute favorites too! I think everyone should read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch & Ubik.
The Exegesis is a hard read. I have the audio version and it's 52 hours long. And from what I've read his un-edited exegesis is over 3000 pages.
If you like PKD, another author you should check out, if you haven't already, is Cordwainer Smith. Some of the most strangely beautiful stories I've ever read. Unfortunately, he only wrote a few sci-fi s.s.(collected in The Rediscovery of Man) and one novel, Norstrilia.

[matt]

I *believe* the full Exegesis is file cabinets full of documents. I'm with you. Palmer Eldrich & Ubik are aweome.

It's hard to pick favorites because I love them all, but my top ten is:
1) A Scanner Darkly
2) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
3) The World Jones Made
4) Clans of the Alpane Moon
5) The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich
6) Eye in the Sky
7) Ubik
8) The Zap Gun
9) Confessions of a Crap Artist
10) Vulcan's Hammer

While the "A Scanner Darkly" movie was cool, I think it ruined the surprise ending. My jaw hit the floor reading the book towards the end. In the movie, they introduced the surprise as a factoid in the beginning.

-Matt

[Hellblazer1138]

My top 10 are:
1) A Scanner Darkly (If you are into audio books at all Paul Giamatti does a great read of this book)
2) VALIS
3) Now Wait for Last Year
4) Ubik
5) Martian Time-Slip
6) The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
7) Clans of the Alphane Moon
8) Galactic Pot-Healer
9) Maze of Death
10) Time Out of Joint

[matt]

Those are all great books. It's very tough to choose favorites! Martian Time-Slip would be on my favorites if the ending were better. It seems like Dick doesn't really know how to end half of his stories, so they just stop or go off into crazy land. Man in the High Castle for all its acclaim had a big letdown at the ending.

Also, maybe "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" should have made it on my top 10. Not sure how "The Zap Gun" and "Vulcan's Hammer" beat them out.

I'd strongly recommend "The World Jones Made" if you haven't read it. It's really brilliant and thought provoking.

[Tandem]

Thomas sounds good to me, but Gabrielle just sounds too...elegant? I think that's the best word for it. At least to me lol.