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I'm trying to create a name for a fictional 'kami' or spirit for a story and I
am struggling with developing it's name. I don't want to create a name for it
and then have it mean something totally ridiculous or just not make any sense.
I originally posted this in the world building stack exchange, but they told
me to post here.

The world is vaguely based on Japan, but it's a fantasy world not a literal
representation of Japan, but all the characters have Japanese names. For the
other characters I've stuck to traditional names, but for my spirit characters
I wanted something a bit more unique.

(Obviously a god can't just be named the Japanese equivalent of 'bob' or
something.$

I have several of these characters, so I will need to really understand how to
create names for them in the future, not just this one. However, to start
with: the first is a Kami that is the manifestation of 'Truth.' I'm trying to
create a name for it that has a meaning like 'Truth Seeing Deity' or maybe
'One Who Sees Truth' or something similar.

The 'idea' for the name is based off the name of the shinto kami Omoikane,(思兼
or 思金) whose name I believe means 'Thought Combining Deity.' Omoi meaning
'thought' and Kane coming from the verb 'to combine?' I would like something
like this, so maybe using the verb 'to see' and the noun for truth?

Something like Mi (見) and Shin (真)? So Mishin? Would that be right or does
that make no sense?

I have very little knowledge of the language, and unfortunately all the
research I've done has just confused me further. I'd really appreciate any
help I can get, thanks!
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-21T17:20:56.883
61650
2018-09-21T18:09:44.397
31339
question
translation names
How to construct a name for fictional Kami?
### Readings

Kami names are generally quite old, and as such, they do not include _on'yomi_
, since these readings are based on the imported Chinese terms. The _shin_
reading for 真 is _on'yomi_. The native Japanese readings are called
_kun'yomi_. A possibly better native-Japanese term using the _kun'yomi_ and
that gets close in meaning might be 本【もと】 ( _moto_ , "base, root, origin,
cause"), or maybe 真【まこと】 ( _makoto_ , "real thing", from _ma-_ "real, true" +
_koto_ "thing, saying, word").

### Word order

Also, Japanese is an SOV or subject-object-verb language, where the subject is
often omissible -- so the verb should come at the end to sound more
"Japanese-y", rather than the Chinese SVO ordering that would put the 見【み】
first.

### Suggestion

Putting it together, with a bit of punning, you might arrive at 真見神 ( _Makoto-
mi Kami_ ), parsing out to "truth-seeing god". The pun here is that the
reading could also be spelled as 真御神 ( _Makoto Mikami_ ), where _mikami_ is an
older honorific term for a _kami_ , using the honorific prefix 御【み】 ( _mi-_ ).
This alternative would parse out to "truth honorable god → honorable god of
truth".
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2018-09-21T18:01:20.267
61652
2018-09-21T18:09:44.397
2018-09-21T18:09:44.397
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answer