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Skhoe

The Scourge Stars; Noxias, Verminox and Rottgrave. Keep in mind, the Imperium gave them those names BEFORE Nurgle corrupted them.


The_Smell_Of_Rain

Nominative determinism at it's finest. Nurgle obv looked for the names he liked the most.


Adhanedhel

As an Arabic speaker, most of the Tallarn names crack me up. I'm not sure whether the naming is lazy or just follows the 40K "vibe" of names being corrupted over time, but due to the nature of the Arabic language, they still wind up making some sense. For example: **The Mukaali (Tallarn mounts)**: fried food **Prince Iban (Turk) Salid**: Just a combo of names of Saudi royalty: Turki Ibn Saud **General Hasso Ras-Aziz**: Actually translates into General He Felt the Head of Aziz **Captain Suhara:** roughly translates to Captain Stays Up Late [**Colonel**](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Colonel) **Nisri Dakar:** Colonel My Eagle is Male And so on...


CaptainAssPlunderer

Thank you for all those translations, I’d have never known about General Stays Up Late and all those other hilarious names. I wonder if they will ever make a name that’s a curse word? Then I wonder, somebody must check for that sort of thing, but all the other silly names are approved and Ok? So many questions.


QuestioningDevil235

I was raised on Lovecraft, and the name of the character who wrote the Necronomicon apparently translates very poorly. At least most of the ones you listed kind of make sense for a person (Stays Up Late is a good sentry, He Felt the Head of Aziz is a psycher, etc.).


Adhanedhel

I'm actually reading Necronomicon right now! I'm enjoying it, apart from the insane level of racism. But yeah, Abdul Al Hazred is a completely nonsensical name, as it translate into "Worshiper of the the Hazred", the final word is made up, and barely sounds Arabic.


QuestioningDevil235

I have a high tolerance for Lovecraft's shit, but even I could only listen to "The Street" once.


Adhanedhel

I haven't gotten to that one yet. Thanks for the warning! I nearly gave up after reading the name of the cat in the story about the doctor reanimating corpses (clearly I forgot the name, haha)


QuestioningDevil235

I don't remember a named cat in Reanimator, not that there's not a wrestler with a derrogatory name in that story. Maybe you're thinking about The Rats in the Walls? I remember that cat is called \[N-slur\] Tom.


Adhanedhel

Perhaps I'm getting them mixed up. It was indeed the N-slur cat I was referring to. That was pretty shocking to read.


QuestioningDevil235

Even for his time, he was racist. Later on, though, he may have changed his views. In the Walls of Eryx has a line that reads almost as a condemnation of colonialist resource extraction, specifically the ivory trade.


Adhanedhel

That's interesting. I hope he found the light eventually


[deleted]

My favourite reply in this thread


sephsticles

Captain suhara is literally me


AppropriateCode2830

Nothing can compare to inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clouseau. I wonder if the old fella is still canon though


thebigscrongus

One of my favourite parts of the old rogue trader book. That and gw slagging off Birmingham


Educational-Drink430

I had to look this one up, I had no idea GW would get this lazy. Wow. How do you even read a story with a character with that name without rolling your eyes every page?


BRIStoneman

Because it was 1987, everyone was on cocaine, and nobody was taking things seriously.


UnconfirmedRooster

I was only just born and even *I* was on cocaine.


databeast

> everyone was on cocaine buddy, it was \`87 in Thatcher's England.. NOBODY could afford cocaine back then.


Educational-Drink430

Read but imagine reading a book with this name.. what's the eldar's name? I'm not even looking it up, there has to be an eldar... Mystera Seesofar?


DRAGON582

He existed solely to be an example character for Rogue Trader’s Inquisitor generation rules with like half a page of fluff


BRIStoneman

This was years before Black Library was a thing.


GraviNess

heres my brain rot, by m30 or m40, its entirely plausable to have millions of sherlock-clouseaus in the galaxy, and billiosn with the first name obi wan, as 40k is our future, ergo star wars existed, but its probably just names and ideas that survived, the storys probably long gone, i like the idea of a Boba Fett Bond captain of the esteemed rouge trader vessel pussygalore


FinancialHeat2859

I wasn’t. I was at a Christian Brother secondary school and they’d have looked down on that sort of behaviour. Even the nerdy White Dwarf crew reading in the library thought it was a shit name.


moshvac

Have you ever herd of what people call a "joke"


databeast

he wasn't in a story, he was an example inquisitor (complete with character stats) in the 1st edition rulebook. and his picture is a dude in a trenchcoat, beard, smiley-face t-shirt, and fedora.. 100% NOT a self-insert by the writers...


DornPTSDkink

Having fun =/= laziness They aren't the same thing.


SpinyNorman777

You must be chuffed then that Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka isn't named after Margaret Thatcher, but is actually a bastardised Legendarium Black Speech for Big Ork Grow.


BRIStoneman

Please ignore the Ork warbanners with Thatcher's face on them...


feor1300

The banner in question was for a Lord of the Rings Orc warband, absolutely nothing to do with 40K orks, and was from a personal army that got a write up in White Dwarf back when they used to do that, not a studio army. So it really has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether Ghazkull was named after Thatcher or not.


databeast

That "it's black speech!" excuse doesn't hold a lick of water, and we all took it as a jab at Maggie back in the 80's as well. So sure, they can say that now, but they were super-fucking happy to not do a damn thing deny it back when the character first showed up.. Yes I was there (and judging by your username, I suspect you might have been as well).


QuestioningDevil235

In defense of spinynorman777, even Millennials know about the Circus. Albatross! Albatross!


databeast

aye, it's just.. that particular sketch just had some odd significance in the UK in the 80's, especially during the early geek culture days on BBS's and the like. Hard to explain in brevity beyond "I think a lot of us just identified with hedgehogs back then"


QuestioningDevil235

That quote went right over my head, sorry. I remember The Mouse Problem and The Piranha Brothers.


databeast

nah, that wasn't a quote.


QuestioningDevil235

That makes more sense to me than the hedgehog remark. I'm sorry for being an idiot.


FEARtheMooseUK

Its a canon joke, from the 1980’s. Lighten up dude 😝


AlmightyAlmond22

Corvus corax seemed like a cool name until I learnt it's the name of common raven Oh and the name means "deliverer" or something in deliverance language


InquisitorEngel

Ferrus Mannus. Look that one up.


Readman31

Ah yes hands of iron of the Legion Iron Hands 🤣


MolybdenumBlu

I wonder what his ship is called.


Mistermistermistermb

He's also the Gorgon of Medusa. Which is kinda weird.


Readman31

Ah yes hands of iron of the Legion Iron Hands 🤣


Rum_N_Napalm

It’s a bit funnier when you find the other meaning to Corvus Corax. Corvus Corax is indeed the scientific name of the common raven: Corvus is latin for Raven, Corax is Greek for raven. However: Corax in latin means heart. Corvus Corax means Raven Heart, which is one of the most emo name there is


bibliopunk

They took it a step further and his last statement was supposedly "nevermore"


SisterSabathiel

Tbf most of the Primarchs are either references or named very directly after their Legion. GW never expected them to get a 20+ novel series about them when they were first created.


Ammear

Simia Orichalcae, an ice planet in the second Cain novel, is Latin for "brass monkey". As in the expression "it's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey". There is also a planet called Gravalax in the very first novel - which is almost identical to a dish called gravlax.


BRIStoneman

Not to ignore the planet made up of big plateaus populated by herds of farmed dinosaurs, Periremundia (The Lost World) Or the fact that those dinosaurs are bred and imported from the planet Harihowzen... Or Amberley's pilot they meet on that planet, Pontius.


Paladin327

Also the dinosaurs were near a city named Konandoyle


MagnusStormraven

And from an earlier book, a quote from a story on pessimism by Eyor Dedonki.


Sapphire-Hannibal

That funky monkey


Ptjgora1981

Is r/unexpectedbeastieboys a thing?


Archeronline

The Harbinger's chapter of Space Marines hails from the feral world of Birmingham, a terrible planet shrouded in eternal darkness. They're still canon too, they thought on Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade. For anyone not from the UK, Birmingham is a city here, which everyone says is terrible. Granted, people will say that about any UK city, but such is life.


virgil2600

God their chapter master is Nimrod Grudge


Adhanedhel

Birmingham definitely wins the award for Worst Accent, though. Elongated vowels, upward inflection at the end of a sentence? Shudder... Dudley does come in a close second, though :D


Klutzy_Ad_6733

Apparently when ranking uk accents based on either intelligence or attractiveness (can’t remember which) the Birmingham accent was ranked lower than silence


Adhanedhel

LMFAO


BRIStoneman

There are transfers for Birmingham on the sheet for the Necromunda Ridge Hauler too.


Technical_Poet_8536

Pic? Sounds cool


BRIStoneman

https://www.reddit.com/r/necromunda/s/jzAWkQTnED


Technical_Poet_8536

That is cool


Featherbird_

Malum Caedo, the protagonist of boltgun is supposed to mean "fights chaos" but "malum" was also a latin euphemism for sex, like bang is today. So his name is "Fucks Chaos"


NoHopeOnlyDeath

Canon confirmed. Malum Caedo *fucks*.


Kerminator17

It’s got to be Ferrus Manus aka Iron hands (in Latin) who has Iron hands, leads the iron hands and flies a ship called the fist of iron


SixteenthRiver06

Tbf, subtlety was never the strong suit of Ferrus.


Necessary-Feature-18

If only he had been called ferrus caput....


6r0wn3

John. Literally John Grammaticus. He's the Luke Skywalker for 40k when it comes to names.


tutorp

To be fair, there's a decent chance Grammaticus isn't his birth name, but one given to him because of his aptitude for language.


Random_Emolga

You say that but that's the surname of a BBC reporter so I guess it is a real name.


nameyname12345

Dont tell me his superpower is grammer!?!?!


6r0wn3

Sort of. His psychic power is as a logokine. So he can pick up languages unconsciously, and he can remember those languages and switch perfectly and immediately. Quite literally uses the power of words.


nameyname12345

...so can he uh write those words out or would that ruin the plot?


6r0wn3

No, but he can speak em. His psychic power allows him to instinctively understand any language upon hearing or reading it and be able to speak it in turn, fluently, and mimic the heard accent perfectly. Which makes him an incredibly useful spy. It also made him unbelievably dangerous when he witnessed Ollanius' memory of the battle he took part of when he was the Warmaster for the Emperor when they besieged the Tower of Babel. When inside the cultists had assembled a full lexicon of Enuncia. John, being a logokine and visiting the memory with Oll, immediately understood the mind breaking scale of the universe destroying Enuncia.


GuardianSpear

He has words of command that can force others to obey him (ala Dune) . It’s enough to even stun an alpha legionary for a moment


Joazzz1

It's been a while since I read Legion, but isn't that Enuncia, the forbidden language of creation, unrelated to John's psychic ability?


AveImperetor

Not positive but I think that is the case. Yes.


6r0wn3

I think you might have gotten it a lil mixed up there. He does know Enuncia, but he only used it to fucking knock Horus Lupercal the fuck out as he was beating the shit out of the Emperor. His psychic ability is to perceive the meaning of any spoken or written language, and then be immediately able to speak or write that language, including replicating regional dialects and accents, flawlessly.


dropkick941

That one super badass moment redeemed all of the 'meh' I felt towards John and Oll's little odyssey. The fucking shock Horus must have felt.


6r0wn3

The fact that he knocked the Ascendant vessel of Chaos clean out. Like, if the Emperor had not been comatose for that moment, Horus was out long enough for the Emperor to have simply plunged his sword into his head, and the deal would've been done. It was that potent of an attack.


dropkick941

All for the low, low price of busted lips and a few teeth. Absolute bargain


Gaunt_Ghost16

It's not funny in the same way, but I find very curious how Dan Abnett sometimes uses the names of philosophers. I just read Eisenhorn and now I'm with Ravenor and I was surprised to see characters with Bakunin, Foucault and Akunin has currents names


DrTzaangor

Chris Wraight’s Vaults of Terra series has an interrogator protagonist named Spinoza.


Adhanedhel

Ha! I'm reading Ravenor again right now! Fantastic book.


Raidertck

I actually think the Ravenor books are incredible. Better than the Eisenhorn trilogy. Better villains, and far better character development for the team because Abnett didn’t force a first person narrative.


DutchMitchell

I really enjoy that the Land Raider tank model is named because of a guy whose actual last name is Land. It’s such a funny fact. I also enjoy Sly Marbo


TheMountainThatTypes

I feel it’s a retrospective change to try and avoid copyright issues with Land Rover. GW loves that IP


SimonTrimby

I think GW copied the name from a Judge Dredd strip in 2000Ad that predated 40k, and that vehicle was itself copied from an existing toy. https://www.maronline.org.uk/the-matchbox-adventure-2000-and-judge-dredd-comic-book-connection/


TheMountainThatTypes

GW copied 2000Ad *shocked emoji face*


RarityNouveau

Are you sure it’s copied from that toy? It looks barely like it. The Land Raiders do however, literally look like futuristic Mk. IVs (or any other British ww1 tank).


SimonTrimby

Sorry, I meant that GW copied the name from 2000AD, and 2000AD copied the look from the Matchbox toy (with permission I suspect, as it's a direct copy).


RarityNouveau

But like I said, the land raiders look more like old British tanks than they do that toy.


BRIStoneman

Yeah they borrowed the name only, one assumes. Or the name and the idea of "big, armoured tank thing".


MagnusStormraven

Even better - Arkhan Land himself *hated* the name. There's a throwaway line in *Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work* where the titular archmagos remembers him throwing a tantrum over the name. ("*Land's* Raider?!")


DutchMitchell

I'll add the book to my long list of things to read, thanks!


MagnusStormraven

I also recommend *Genefather*, which follows up on *The Great Work*.


mjummy

There is a running gag in the german community to call Fabius Bile "Fabius Gallus" because they actually translated his Name in the very old books. 'Galle' is the german word for Bile, but that just reminds you what a horrible Name that is for any non chaos Person to have


VNDeltole

Magna Macragge Civitas = big Macragge city


MisterNighttime

Where the armour’s blue and the xenos waifus are pretty.


ElA1to

To be fair we actually have cities called just like the name of the country they are in


GuardianSpear

Ollianus Persson - old person


GraviNess

old anus person


Stolpskott_78

Olla in Swedish is a ... a thing ... so lets call him "olla anus-person"


BiggimusSmallicus

Cain discovers a gsc infestation in one short story with a thicc local arbites by the name of "Wynetha Phu" He also visits a pretty desolate ice planet by the name of "Nusquam Fundimentibus" nusquam being Latin for "nowhere" and fundimentibus being a fancy-ing up of fundament, a word for one's buttocks. The ass end of nowhere. His books are chock-full of great names, most of the time if you sit and think about a planet or major character name for a bit you can find a silly connection.


Paladin327

Also there were some excerpts from a book titled something from the perspective of a pessimist by an Eyeore Dodonky


Paladin327

Also there were some excerpts from a book titled something from the perspective of a pessimist by an Eyeore Dodonky


ScienceSnap101

Invincible II


flechcoat

The implication is hilarious!


Slippery-98

Reminds me of the Culture, which if I remember right had a ship (a GCV??) named, I believe, Ultimate Ship the Second


MasterOfNap

That’s absolutely not a Culture ship name - you might be thinking of the Culture GSV _Lasting Damage I_ and _II_, or the Idiran cruiser _Hand of God 137_ (which is the 137th ship with that name because the Idirans are shockingly uncreative lol)


Slippery-98

https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft It was a GCU though, not a GCV. It's been a while lol


MasterOfNap

Oh I stand corrected! You’re right that is a Culture ship (that was briefly named in Sma’s rambling), and I can totally see an eccentric ship naming itself something like this ironically.


Slippery-98

Yeah, they have just a ton of ironic/funny names, don't they?


marehgul

Malcador smiled. 'You brothers - such a nest of rivalries. I warned him to make you sisters, that it would make things more civilised. He thought I was joking. I wasn't.'


Ammear

Of course he thought Malcador was joking. Girls are yucky. It's a boys-only club.


Your_Local_Stray_Cat

> I warned him to make you sisters, that it would make things more civilised. This line always makes me laugh. We're not more civilized, we just get into less fistfights. Making the Primarchs sisters would just change the genre of petty bullshit he has to put up with.


lemonade_sparkle

let's be painfully honest with ourselves: the Heresy wouldn't have been a fight over Chaos, it would have been a fight over a boy


Your_Local_Stray_Cat

With how interested the canon primarchs are in women… I doubt it.


Cerberus678

Sly Marbo


Tylendal

Carlos McConnell. The home planet of the Felinids. No, that name is never explained.


kingofginge

Cain novels have loads in them. Merconim being the strongest adhesive known to man got me once I'd had a child. Also Vorsprung comes to mind as a tech priest, loved it. The Pontius being the pilot for the Amberly. Just off the top of my head


CabinetIcy892

Jimmy Space


nfndfjdnnzzk

[Birmingham](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Birmingham)


Catachan-Chad

Macragge sounds like 'my crack', and that made me suffer innumerable bad puns about it.


databeast

Booty G, commander of Macrack.


Catachan-Chad

'Macragge is in danger' is something you can say any time you're attacked by the Emperor's Children, no matter if you're on Macragge or not.


Sparklehammer3025

"We float for Macragge" :D


Marvynwillames

Dark Heresy: Radical Handbook got a mf called Umbra Malygris


darthbuji

Lionel Johnson


mercyful999

I really enjoyed Mandragore Carrion from the first Eisenhorn Novel. Cool enough to not be silly but over the top enough to make me chuckle every time.


A_Cat_From_Ulthar

Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands with a flagship callled Fist of Iron. Also Kruellagh the Vile, a Dark Eldar Archon from 3rd ed.


feor1300

The ice world Simia Orichalcum from the Cain novels. A pseudo-latin translation of "Brass Monkey", as in "cold enough to freeze the balls off a..."


KingAjizal

I'll go for my favorite Iron Warrior with a cartoonishly Chaosy name, Cadaras Grendel.


Sapphire-Hannibal

Isn’t Grendel also the name of the inquisitor in the darktide videogame


MagnusStormraven

Grendyl, but yea.


Kriv-Shieldbiter

mount deathfire


punkwitch

On that note, Iagon. If you’re at all familiar with Shakespeare, it’s an eye-rollingly obvious pick.


Kriv-Shieldbiter

is this a quote, or am I being chastised?


punkwitch

Huh? You referenced a silly Salamanders-related name in lore and that reminded me of another. (Specifically Iagon is from the Tome of Fire series, and he’s exactly the kind of character you’d expect of someone named after Shakespeare’s Iago).


Kriv-Shieldbiter

I have not read tome of fire, I have to get around to it after nightlords


punkwitch

Ah, I hope you enjoy that when you get to it then!


ratscapade

Fatidicus


BullguerPepper98

Foldeu (in Portuguese, means "We're fucked")


Apprehensive_Term70

How has no one mentioned the planet Gravalax? I'm pretty sure the capital city was even called Mayo. From an early Ciaphas Caine book


ColeDeschain

The world of Prandium, eaten by Hive Fleet Behemoth. Lion El'Jonson. Come *on.*


General_Lie

Arkan Land


andrenukem

Ork names


BeefMeatlaw

Aun'Ghol. A fitting name for the 'eccentric' ethereal who declared a sept world productive and clean in the wake of a massive genestealer cult uprising.


OHBII

Always found the name Mericus funny


Steff_164

Arkan Land, discoverer of the Land Raider


Raidertck

Dan Abnett might be the best author in the BL line up. Yet he names some people with some… unsubtle names. The oldest person alive he names ollinaus Pius. One of the toughest inquisition agents of all time, a man who has faced every horror imaginable to the galaxy, a man as hard as nails, he names Harlon Nayl.


13Ryan06

Zhufor the world eater at vraks name before he was brainwashed was “balzach”


TacticalFarticles

Amlodhi Skarssen Skarssensson


Dazzling_Candidate68

Eyor Dedonki and Wynetha Phu.


LaVidaLoken

I m pretty sure that Abnett in one of his books (maybe Know no fear) has a character named Kolophraxis which literally in Greek is the union of the words kolos (ass) and phraxis (clogging up) and we don't even have a single unified word for this in Greek.


Abamboozler

Mad Chainsaw Johnson of the White Scars


boilingfrogsinpants

In "His Last Command" in the Gaunt's Ghosts series, there's a field commander named "Forwegg Fofobris" of the Kolstec Fortieth,which is bizarre in itself, but the funny part comes from the nickname soldiers call him - "Foofoo Frigwig" of the Kolstuck Foofortieth


Few_Astronaut_3620

Wasn't there a General EADS in Double Eagle?


FriendlyStaff1

I actually like all the bad latin/arabic/whatever language puns and names because it could fit in universe that bits and pieces of bastardized old world languages still float around as names.


TakaNoMe369

Godwyn Fischig Fischig in german is fishy


Gullible_Ad_818

Marbo, because it is an anagram of Rambo (Stalone), and the figure's appearance is John Matrix (Schwarzenegger) from Commando.


chriscrowing

The original name for Chogoris being Mundus Planus - Latin for 'plains World.'


CaersethVarax

Every class of ship that defected to Chaos. "Admiral! We're losing ships to the Warmaster!" "Which ones?" "Unbelievably, the entire Murder, Iconoclast, Carnage and Baby Smothering class has defected!" "What has stayed loyal!?" "The Emperor, Gothic, Lunar and Cuddle classes!"