Pointers for Piskies

Pointers for Piskies: Names and Naming Post 12 

When I started writing the Fairy in the Bed series, I dealt with just one kind of fay. As

the series expanded, I brought in more. To justify having them different (they're all fay or fairies, but many of them categorise themselves beyond that) I came up with naming systems to suit each group.

Part of the fun, if not making up the names from scratch, lies in adapting existing names and finding enough that fit recognisably into a culture.

Piskies are quite closely related to pixies, but they consider themselves a very different people. The ones that live in the pisky hills have their own favoured way of dressing and they rather pride themselves on being mercurial, manipulative and vain. The men call themselves pisky men, while the women can be pisky misses or, on occasion, pisky minxes. They like to use Cornish names just as much as they like to wear silver ornaments and bindings, buckles and belts on their clothing.
The ones met so far in the series include Merryn "Merry" Pendennis, who is considered much nicer than most of his kind. Merryn has two sons and a daughter. George "Jory" Pendennis and Richenda Pendennis by his human love Rachel and Tane Pendennis by the water maid Tam. 
Merry's cousin Keeley Weir Marsh is also paired up with a human, but she seems to have had the naming of their three sons, Yestin, Kevern and Caden.
Beatrice Florin is a pisky maid who has "lived human" for a long time, and Daveth Porthwellian is an acquaintance of Jory Pendennis. Jillian Jules Fraeman and her mother Zena and Jillian Jules' children are all part pisky, but once the pisky blood waters down to 25% or less, the naming conventions are less obvious.

The Fairy in the Bed series is showcased at Larksinger while the books can be purchased from the publisher.

About the Blog

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places and objects. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!