Guild Wars 2

Like seriously, it just randomly came to my mind as i was playing: Do the Sylvari name themselves (Like Caithe named herself Caithe), or did Mother Pale Tree name each and every one of them. And if she did, where do you think she got her motivation from; because there are no humans or other races with names as “unique” as the Sylvari to my knowledge.

As a thought, maybe they just thought of it themselves or saw something in their dream (like a white lily) and found that to be their name (Pure Lily) or something similar. I like to think that upon first seeing the world in the dream, they come up with their name based on what they think sounds best to others/themselves.

Yes this is deep. I know.

Their names come from the Dream, like the rest of the knowledge they’re born with. There’s actually an interesting conversation about this with a Sylvari named Pherick behind Dreamer’s Terrance. Non-Sylvari characters can ask who named him such, and he just responds with a confused “It’s my name. Nobody gave it to me.” and makes a comparison to him knowing it’s his name just as we know our ears are ours (because they’re just part of us, I guess, the conversation kinda stops around there).

Where those names come from, I’d assume either other races (there are some humans who have names from the same RL origins as Sylvari names) or they’re just made up out of letters/sounds from New Krytan—Sylvari never seem to suggest their names have any actual meaning behind them like ours do, so that might explain why they come off as foreign despite not coming from centuries of a pre-established culture and language.