#names being like inherited souls unto themselves; aspects of which are imparted

[willowbilly]

Hi!

Do you have any recommendations for resources on Inuit names in the mid 19th century? I’m working on a post-canon The Terror fic and I want names for OCs.

Ii, sure thing! I don't know of any Inuit name databases in modern standardized orthography, specifically, but I have some resources!

Most important is to keep dialect, orthography, and the kinship system in mind. If your OCs are Ugřuliŋmiut, Qikiqtarmiut, Natchiliŋmiut, or any other speakers of what may possibly be termed a Nattilingmiutut (sub)dialect, I'd suggest hewing toward phonetically modern Natchiliŋmiutut in the way that I think the book ᐊᒡᓗ | Aglu | The Breathing Hole does for its Inuktut starting from Act One in 1535 onward, resulting in intervocalic [h] rather than [s] and so on, as this way one can more closely rely on available resources that reflect today's modern language. If one uses modern standardized orthography, then try to standardize all the names alike into the same qaliujaaqpait, for example by representing the voiced velar nasal [ŋ] phoneme with either /ŋ/ or /ng/ throughout all names; otherwise, keep period-typical spelling for all the names, and note that you may need to “de-update” names from modern standardized spelling so that they meet the same nonstandard standard. “Aglukkaq” is spelled in modern standardized orthography; “Aglooka” is in period-typical nonstandardized orthography. Modern standardized orthographies for Inuit languages are highly phonemic, meaning that the spelling systems' graphemes more consistently correlate to the languages' phonemes, and usage of modern standardized orthography in the historical setting could imply that the POV character is better able to discern how the language actually sounds. Kinship terms would be usual in place of speaking a relative's name, and people adopted into a community would be given kinship terms or, with a name, the kinship terms that correspond to their namesake. Inuit names are all functionally unisex!

Inuit naming is a brief article by Peter Irniq. He mentions the -nnuaq and -nnuałłuk postbases as the Natchiliŋmiutut ones preferred over other Canadian dialects' -kuluk.

Janet Tamalik McGrath's master's thesis Conversations with Nattilingmiut elders on conflict and change: Naalattiarahuarnira touches on the kinship system's traditional usage.

I highly recommend going through The Netsilik Eskimos: Social Life and Spiritual Culture by Knud Rasmussen, wherein his census record as many names as he could in his own orthography, influenced by his fluency in Kalaallisut. The name “Orpingalik” from his orthography may be modernized to “Uqpiŋalik;” “Qaqortingneq” to “Qakuqti’niq;” “Uvlúnuaq” to “Uplunnuaq;” “mane·lAq” to “Maniilaq;” “kiɳmiArtɔq” to “Kiŋmiaqtuq;” et cetera.

Modern Inuktut language surnames are all derived from traditional given names, so looking at prominent Inuit figures, and at who is portrayed and credited in media such as on IsumaTV, can yield great results! Though note that some names will be dialect-specific, and many surname spellings predate standardization. Thus, surnames such as Louie Kamookak's and Sammy Kogvik's would be standardized to “Qamukkaaq” and “Qurvik” respectively.

The Natchilingmiut Uqauhingit | Natchilingmiutut Dictionary is indispensable, both for with which to double-check one's spelling, and for the nouns therein that may make for suitable names! Common nouns like tuktu “caribou,” ujarak “rock,” and kuplu “thumb” are all solid choices. If one is feeling daring, one may even combine a verb root with the intransitive indicative mood singular verb ending +ř/tuq (+řuq after vowels, +tuq after consonants) to make a noun participle. Postbases like -nnuaq (noun-to-noun; “the small Noun”) and -’ř/-rřuaq (noun-to-noun; “the big Noun”) may additionally be incorporated so long as one is confident of one's grammatical synthesizing.

To that aim, the sites uqausiit.ca and tusaalanga.ca are really very wonderful, uqausiit being a dictionary, tuhaalaŋa having a glossary with more than a few audio entries, and both holding extremely useful grammar basics on several central Canadian Inuit language varieties that include Natchiliŋmiutut! Other great sites I recommend are inuktitutcomputing.ca (grammar and some Natchiliŋmiutut in the dictionary); inuinnaqtun.ca (closely related language Inuinnaqtun resources); and inupiaqonline.com (Alaskan Iñupiatun language dictionary)! The Inuktitut Magazine archive is available online for free as well!

Everyone should also read Aglu, because I hath saith. One should cry for Aŋu’řuaq, that good bear. (Natchiliŋmiutut translation included!)

Any mistakes herein are mine; if spotted, feel free to please correct! (A variant by the qakuqhi- in the dictionary may be Qakuqhi’niq…and perhaps Qakuqhinniq would furthermore be the better standardization as I am unsure as to whose precise subdialects assimilate the latter [t] in what I presume is the ∓tit- morpheme into /’/ versus /n/, and so on…) I do hope this is helpful!