Being Creative With Your Senshi's Name
By Noah

Every time I go online and go to different websites hosting otaku Senshi, I see the same names: sun, earth, comet, star, black hole, etc. But what about the creative names? I don't believe that you have to be restricted to things in outer space. I'm here to explain to you the advantages and more of having a Senshi (and a civilian) with a creative name that reflects on them, not just something pulled out of the sky.

"The Civilian Name Game"

Let's start off with your civilian. I believe that her name should go with what she is the Senshi of - after all, that's how it is in Sailor Moon. Okay, you've got a wonderful profile, it's the best you've made, but something's amiss: this sport-loving girl carries the name of Angel Diamond! Take into consideration what your character does or loves to do. You could take a name of your favorite sports player and change it around a bit. Maybe this girl has the name Mimi Ham, a spoof off of Mia Hamm? Or maybe your civilian loves to read. My friend Aggie loves Nora Roberts. She even created a whole Senshi dedicated to her! Sure, Sailor Roberts isn't name creative, but the idea is! Sailor Robert's civilian name is Dahlia Rose, titles from some of her books. You don't have to base it off of her hobbies (like Mimi) or their favorite things to do (like Sailor Roberts), you could base it off of anything you please!

Other examples are the god and goddess Senshi. There's nothing cooler than putting mythology into action. Let's say that you've made up Sailor Demeter, the Senshi of the harvest, and you need a really cool name for her. Don't just call her Emily Smith; look up words that are associated with harvest (or harvest related things) to come up with a neat and creative name! Okay, by going to the thesaurus, I've found the word "summer" and love it. After all, the end of summer marks the beginning of the harvest season! So maybe you could look up "end" in the thesaurus and I've found . . . (gee, that's a lot!) omega! That's great! So we have Sailor Demeter, with a civilian name of Summer Omega. Okay, it's not the best, but I'm coming up with this stuff as I type. You should take the time and put in the effort to make your Senshi as creative as possible.

Another little issue is having civilian names that match the Senshi names! The whole point is to not let people know who you are! Let's take something simple, like Rainbow. Your Senshi is Sailor Rainbow, the protector of colors! But her civilian name is Annie Rainbow. Uh - oh! There's trouble afoot and Annie has to leave the school! She rushes out (giving an "I have to use the bathroom" excuse), transforms, and meets with the other Senshi. Then people start to come and watch and lo and behold - Sailor Rainbow is giving her speech! Since "Rainbow" is such an uncommon last name, people will start to suspect something! Even if you love the name Annie Rainbow and don't want to change, or she's had it forever and it's her trademark, why not try something different, like Spectrum or Roy G Biv? You never know until you try. Next stop: naming your Senshi!

"A Senshi By Any Other Name . . ."

. . . wouldn't make as much sense. I'm going to go back and use Mimi Ham. So, she's Mimi Ham, a sport-loving, athletic girl, but she's Sailor Computer. That's a problem. So I'm going to talk about how to change Sailor Computer into Sailor Agile!

The biggest thing I'm stressing is CREATIVITY! Don't do things that others have done! If you've seen one Sailor Earth, you've probably seen them all. We know, we know, she's a relative of Mamoru! Yeesh. People create things like Sailor Earth and Sailor Sun, while poor Sailor Agile sits in the corner. It's like I said with the civilian names, have them at least try and go together! If she likes sports, chances are she won't be spending most of her days on the computer. If you really feel that she could be a part of a great team, make her great - not blah (unless she's Sailor Blah, then no comment).

If you want to do something that someone else has done (like Sailor Earth), try to make her stand out! I know this is out of the naming league, so I'll try to mix things into it. Instead of naming her Sailor "Earth", go to the thesaurus to look it up, or even try a free online translator to translate earth into other languages. She can still be Sailor Earth with all of the "earth-y" trimmings, but with a different name. Sailor Aarde (aarde is earth in Dutch) can be just as great as Sailor Earth, but her name can be something unique! You can also use a translator or a thesaurus to make her attack names something unique too!

Your character might be in love with plants and flowers and loves taking care of them. So instead of naming her Sailor Rose, Sailor Violet, or Sailor Lilac, look for a list of flowers and their characteristics online. You might also want to try and match things up a bit. If she's a nice and sweet person, you might want her Senshi name to reflect that, maybe with Sailor Anise, a sweet-tasting edible flower. It matches with her sweet personality and it's an easy name to say. There's a whole bunch of ideas just waiting for you online!

History is a great thing to choose when thinking about otaku Senshi. There are so many different things in history: the people, the places, the inventions! My Senshi-in-the-making, Sailor Pendragon is from the Arthurian era, and a descendent of the Pendragon family. (It's also cool to see how creative people can get to tie in history to Sailor Moon, but again, not my thing.) But people and families don't have to be the only thing you can use from history, as I mentioned before, it can be anything! All you need is a creative mind, the internet, your local library, and if you're in school, take a look at some of your textbooks, they might have cool things in them. Sure, not everyone's going to be thinking, "Oo! Sailor Equation sounds kickin'!", but I'm sure you get my point. Next on our list, classification of Senshi!

"Neo This, Zodiac That"

Classification is very important to a Senshi, it's what makes her "belong", so to say. But everyone classifies the Senshi the same way. A few examples are the Neo Senshi: daughters of the original Senshi; and Zodiac Senshi: Senshi that have to do with the Zodiac. Now I'm not saying that doing this is wrong or bad, but it's just been done so many times! Everywhere I go I see them, even on the more popular sites!

Let's talk about Neo Senshi first. Let's face it - not every Senshi is going to have a daughter. There are X and Y chromosomes! Another thing that's not that great about it is the team! It's cool to have a team of sailor Senshi that don't know each other, than one where they're all friends and their mothers can help them out when they need it. Bo-oring! The best kind of team is where all their powers are different, but can be used together in time of desperate need. An example of this would be the Sailor Write team. Sailor Write team?, you ask. Yep, the Sailor Write team consists of Sailor Calligraphy, Sailor Pen, Sailor Spray-Paint, Sailor Marker, Sailor Crayon, and Sailor Pencil. Not only is it creative, it's unique and has nothing to do with outer space, proving that outer space means nothing, if you have a great story line. Proof that you don't need to "neo-up" your Senshi to have a great idea. It was great at first but now it's not.

Zodiac Senshi in the beginning were totally trendy. People (including me) were like "All right, I can use Zodiac signs!" I'm guilty of creating Sailor Libra, but I never did anything with her for some reason . . . Okay, back to the article. So it might be neat to do that, but again, everyone's doing it, it's not unique anymore! I know its heartbreaking to hear, but you should make up your own thing! Have them come from different universes and different planets in those universes, not Japan! That's also very typical. You could create a world similar to Japan if you pleased . . . You don't need Neo or Zodiac Senshi to have a story line, anything could make a perfect (and creative) one! Okay, hard names, here I come!

"The Harder the Name, The Harder the Understanding"

I know it seems "cool" to have a really long civilian name, a long Senshi name (sometimes multiple Senshi names), and long titles, but for the reader it's not. Trust me when I say that no Senshi should have to go through life with the title of "Moon Princess Harmony Angel Rose Ribbon-Candy", not only is it really long, it's also hard to put in your speech (if your Senshi has one), and it's especially awkward when your Senshi is a fire Senshi. Yikes.

If she is a Senshi of fire, her title could be "Fire Protector", or something like that. I suggest you be more creative than I am (it's kind of early). Speaking of early, my friend created a Senshi (in about 30 minutes) based on me, Sailor Insomnia (it's true) and instead of having a title of "Insomnia Implementer" (although it's different), she had "Enforcer of Sleepless Nights". See how creative you can be? You don't even need to have a lot of time on your hands!

It's okay if you don't have a really long name or title. People will thank you for it in the end. Well, that's just about it for me!

"In Conclusion"

Before I go completely, I want to touch on things that people might do while naming their Senshi that don't go well with the Sailor Moon world and why:

In this world of ours with so much creativity, I'm sure that you can make the most unique named Senshi - and it'll blow people away, if you just put effort, your resources, time, and your brain into it! I know it'll be great!

Noah can be contacted at rosemaidenstombstone@yahoo.com.