They call the wind Maria: Naming Languages
They spell the wind “Maria” in Paint Your Wagon, the musical from which the song originates, although they call it “Mariah”—-a good example of the transcription issues involved in conlanging, even if your conlang is just a naming language.
Naming languages are the favorite conlang of the accidental conlanger. Writers frequently name ten or twenty characters with little consideration beyond a name’s appeal to their own ear. This is a legitimate approach, if you have a good ear (see, for example, Ruanja), or if the story is short enough that the names you pulled out of your raesasr won’t have a chance to wear on the reader. But as people, places, and pages proliferate, you may want to take a more consistent approach to constructing names.
In this section of the book, we will consider a wide range of approaches to constructing naming languages, including no language at all.
