Gems from Fantasy Books - The Blending Series

One of the first fantasy series that ever caught my attention was a five part series called "The Blending", written by Sharon Green. The series centres around five people, each of whom are adept in a different kind of magic, who work together as a team to compete to become the new ruling five. I was always taken with the names of the five characters, as they were not names I had heard before and sounded fantastical and magical when I was a teenager. While they are still by no means usual names, they are ones that either are or have roots in known names, and could easily stand on their own in todays world.


Jovvi (female)
Jovvi is the spirit magic adept of the group. I'd imagine her name would be pronounced JOV-vee, rather than Joe-VEE. I haven't been able to find any reference to the name in this form, but have seen Jovi and also Jovie both as stand-alone names and as nicknames for the longer forms Jovial, Jovalyn, Joviana, Jovena, Jovana and Jovita. Most of the longer forms are feminine versions of the name Jove, the Roman King of Gods, and means 'happy'. I have however also seen someone say that Jovi means 'harmonious soul', which I guess would be suitable for someone wielding Spirit magic.

While I quite like the name Jovvi, I do think it works better as a nickname. If you are thinking about Jovvi as a name, it's worth remembering the almost immediate association with Jon Bon Jovi and a secondary association with Buddy's girlfriend Jovie played by Zooey Deschanel in "Elf".


Tamrissa (female)
Tamrissa is adept in fire magic, and it is her name that most caught my fancy. This is possibly because I have a bit of a fascination with the name"Rissa". As I can't find any references for the name Tamrissa, I can only assume it is a made up name, and a quick lookup on Facebook shows there are only a couple of girls with this name, so if it's unique and rare you're after, this is it!

My best guess is this is a combination of Tamra (meaning 'palm tree') and Rissa (meaning 'illustrious'). It is quite pretty, but some might stumble over the m-r combo, thinking it should be Tamarissa instead.




Vallant (male)
Vallant is the water talent. I think what strikes one immediately about his name is it's similarity to Valiant, which is starting to see some use as a virtue name for boys. Or it may come from Vallant-Saint-Georges, a commune in North East France. I like that it is similar to Valiant, without it being a virtue name that a child might feel pressured to live up to, but think that it would be too often mistaken for Valiant.




Lorand (male)
Lorand works with Earth magic. Again, a quick search on Facebook shows that this is a name that is actually getting some real life use, yet not enough to make it a common name by any means. In French it means 'crowned with Laurel', while in Hungarian it is a version of Roland and means 'Famous Country'. Lorand, to me, sounds quite strong with the hard 'rand' sound, but soft at the same time with the 'lor' sound that is reminiscent of girls names such as Lauren, Laurel and Lorelei. I think it would be a good choice for a boys name if you are looking for something different but not strange or 'kre8tiv'.



Rion (initially Clarion, male)
Rion is the air magic talent of the five. He has two names, the Clarion that he starts with and the Rion that he becomes as he matures into a grown man with an identity not entwined with his that of his mother. I think he ends up being perhaps the most endearing character in the series. While I think Clarion is too feminine for me to imagine using it for a boy due to it's resemblance to Clarissa, Rion is much more usable. It is an Irish name that means 'king'. I find it strange to discover it is pronounced similarly to Ryan, as in my head I always pronounced it Ree-on (by the way, I know a Reon, if you're looking for another alternative). It makes sense though, as it's almost just a shorter version of the rising Greek mythological name Orion. A good choice if a familiar sounding yet different looking name is what you are searching for.