TO THOSE MAKING NATIVE OCS

rosslynpaladin:

shishitsunari:

aphromanoo:

I see this a lot, no one has actual names, or any reference for names, that are legit Native American, varying among the tribes, for their characters.

Babynames.com and shit like that will give you names made up by white people.

However, I’ve got your solution.

Native-Languages  is a good website to turn to for knowledge on a lot of native things, including native names. If you’re unsure about the names you’ve picked, they even have a list of made up names here!

Please don’t trust names like babynames.com for native names, they’re made up and often quite offensive to the cultures themselves.

Thank you!

Also modern Natives almost all have “typical” English speaker names. Jamie, Andrew, Becky, Anna, Zoe, Darius, Jana, Michelle, or names in the languages local to them- Francois, Arturo, Guadalupe. If we have native language names as well, we might not be sharing those with just anyone or casually using them. Or maybe we do. They might be a joke, they might be a nickname, they might be sacred and kept from everyone but family.

You have to know about the specific culture and people you are writing. Natvies are not a monoculture. There are hundreds and hundreds of nations and tribes and peoples.