Of Naming Fictional Jobs

So I searched for ‘tips on naming fictional jobs’ into google–and spent an inordinate amount of time pursuing eventual dead ends.  I’ve drafted many names for the various jobs, species, and so forth in my book, and many times end up going back to the original name; the less specific name that could easily be confused with it’s native meaning.

But, back to the point. I searched. And searched. But alas the results were on naming characters. Or name generators. Or fantasy jobs, as in jobs only found within books, but not jobs that required one to invent a name for it.

Nothing.

An overreaction on my part.

Rowling picked the name auror. This name, as far as I can tell checking through Notre Dame’s English to Latin dictionary, the root, aur, has lots of readings. I searched the root, the full and the suffix–but nothing about it screamed ‘wizard cop’, so I assume she chose it because maybe she liked the sound of it and maybe the meaning to overlay with gold sounded appealing. I don’t know her reasons–but it makes me think that perhaps even if my naming doesn’t have a ‘hard connection’ or any connection, that maybe it’s still okay.

The point being that while my knowledge in Latin is incredibly limited–it seems as though she had fun and that auror doesn’t directly relate to the occupation’s purpose.

I have within my own book several instances where an invented term would suit the occupation rather than just pulling from common words.  But whether to invent a new word or to build off of an existing one has left me confused, frustrated, and on the verge of just leaving the common names for these supernatural jobs at peace.

Perhaps there is no concrete way of doing it. But still, I’ll continue searching.