Alfons Varsenik - GodzillaLouise Thread

[GodzillaLouise]

Any question I have about the highly significant (yet is only ever mentioned in my fanfics) scientific figure/character named Alfons Varsenik of my Godzilla/Ultraman Fanfiction world will be asked here.

Now, I don’t plan to do a separate thread for every character I have in my world: that’d be stupid and would definitely be annoying. So, I will be split the rest of my characters between two other threads, one for each of my fan series and its extended fan media. That said, Alfons Varsenik is the only character I have who really doesn’t fit into those categories and is also fairly significant.

To start, Alfons Varsenik’s work-in-progress profile currently only has an overview on who he was, which reads as follows:

Alfons Varsenik is a Dutch theoretical physicist and Kaiju Biologist who is mentioned frequently in Ultraman M/L/V. While he died at the age of 86 in 3781 (5,919 years before the series), his discoveries and theories were some of the most important in establishing the modern understanding of Kaiju Biology as of the series.

Which describes most of what I have on him right now, though there is more. Though for now, I’ll leave it at one more thing: in Episode 23 of M/L/V, the main characters will fight a being known as https://ultra.fandom.com/wiki/Greeza, a living space-time anomaly with a ‘body’ containing no matter or energy that can still generate energy to attack others. Despite how ridiculous that may sound from a scientific standpoint, Varsenik predicted that things like Greeza exist long before they actually appeared.

Anyway, the first question I have about Alfons Varsenik is his surname: does it actually sound like a Dutch surname? I made it up and used Google Translate’s detect language feature to see what Google thought it sounded like most, so I don’t know if it actually sounds Dutch.

[Khemehekis]

If you use surnames that end in single vowel + K (e.g. Choksondik), they will sound Slavic to many people.

[GodzillaLouise]

If you use surnames that end in single vowel + K (e.g. Choksondik), they will sound Slavic to many people.

Ah, I see. So the answer is probably not, as Dutch, as I just looked up, is not a Slavic language.

Personally, I never put much thought into what his nationality would be. So, seeing as I haven’t decided what the Netherlands’ situation, or for the most part any nation’s situation, is in his time (and thus can’t determine the plausibility of his success), I’ll go ahead and change his nationality, as I don’t really imagine him being an immigrant. But first, any recommendations on what would make sense with his surname, or do you think any Slavic nationality would do?

[Khemehekis]

If you use surnames that end in single vowel + K (e.g. Choksondik), they will sound Slavic to many people.

Ah, I see. So the answer is probably not, as Dutch, as I just looked up, is not a Slavic language.

Personally, I never put much thought into what his nationality would be. So, seeing as I haven’t decided what the Netherlands’ situation, or for the most part any nation’s situation, is in his time (and thus can’t determine the plausibility of his success), I’ll go ahead and change his nationality, as I don’t really imagine him being an immigrant. But first, any recommendations on what would make sense with his surname, or do you think any Slavic nationality would do?

Well, ie you spell it "Varsenic", with a C, it will fit right in in a Balkan country, like Serbia or Slovenia.

Alternatively, you could call him Alfons Varsenbeek -- the double vowel will look more Dutch.

[Arayaz]

I'd suggest using a real Dutch name.

[Khemehekis]

I'd suggest using a real Dutch name.

Schuyler . . . Lambert . . . Conklin . . . Van Dyke . . . Vanderbilt . . . Vanderpol . . . Stuyvesant . . . Ockerse . . . just to name a few.

[GodzillaLouise]

I'd suggest using a real Dutch name.

I could very easily, but at this point, his name is what’s stuck with me the most while writing about him. If I renamed him beyond just minor spelling changes, like changing the K to a C, I’d have to get used to his new name and that’d take me a bit of time, hence why I want to keep the current name.

[Salmoneus]

I'd suggest using a real Dutch name.

Schuyler . . . Lambert . . . Conklin . . . Van Dyke . . . Vanderbilt . . . Vanderpol . . . Stuyvesant . . . Ockerse . . . just to name a few.

Fwiw, those are English/American names, some of which are of Dutch origin. Even those with Dutch origins would be pronounced and in some cases spelled differently in Dutch.

Schuyler is found in Dutch, I believe. Lambert isn't (much - obviously anyone can live in the Netherlands, there's no barrier based on surnames!) - it's ultimately Germanic, but almost always via French, and often very old (I think it's been a name in England since the conquest, although probably the most famous one lived in the 17th century). Conklin is an exclusively American name of unknown origin, and certainly couldn't be Dutch in that form. Vandyke/Van Dyke are English spellings of "van Dijk". Vanderbilt is from "van der Bilt". Vanderpol is "van der/den Pol/Poll", although some may originally have been "van der Poel" instead. Stuyvesant is Dutch, but its popularity in America is entirely due to a single Dutchman who happened to have the name, so its frequency in the US is far beyond its frequency in the Netherlands! Ockerse does seem to be a genuine Dutch surname.

In general if you want Dutch names, I'd look at actual Dutch people, rather than at Americans of allegedly Dutch ancestry. The American names may not reflect the spelling, pronunciation, or frequency of the names in Dutch, and in some cases may not even be of Dutch origin at all.

[Salmoneus]

If you use surnames that end in single vowel + K (e.g. Choksondik), they will sound Slavic to many people.

Ah, I see. So the answer is probably not, as Dutch, as I just looked up, is not a Slavic language.

Personally, I never put much thought into what his nationality would be. So, seeing as I haven’t decided what the Netherlands’ situation, or for the most part any nation’s situation, is in his time (and thus can’t determine the plausibility of his success), I’ll go ahead and change his nationality, as I don’t really imagine him being an immigrant. But first, any recommendations on what would make sense with his surname, or do you think any Slavic nationality would do?

Just to give more info... the suffix -ik creates nouns from adjectives, and is also widely used as a diminutive in east/west (not south) slavic. More specifically, though, -nik in particular creates nouns from participles (i.e. originally verbs) and is similar to English -er, a doer of things. It usually occurs in names indicating ancestral occupations. As well as Slavic is also apparently appears in Estonian (presumably by borrowing from Russian) and Latvian/Lithuanian may have similar suffixes either by borrowing or by descent from PRoto-Balto-Slavic; these may be spelled differently, but might be respelled in the Slavic manner if someone's ancestors moved to a different country.

I don't speak Slavic languages so I can't help you much. A quick look on wikipedia suggests slavic root vrsha-, fish trap, which can have -a- in some languages (Bularian, Belarussian), or Bulgarian varsha, "to do" (perhaps a 'varshanik' could be a 'doer'? maker? accomplisher?). But these are all with a -sh- sound. Warsaw in Poland comes from warsza-, but that's an abbreviation of Czech Vratislav, apparently, so I don't know if you could stick -nik on the end of it. And it would have W-, but maybe if the family moved somewhere else it could be respelled. Or there are words varsa- and varsi- in finnic languages?

I assume it's not a real Slavic surname so would have to be due to the family moving and the name being misheard/respelled? But as I say you'd probably better find an actual Slavic speaker!

"Alfons" is apparently a name in German, Dutch, Swedish and Polish, as well as Catalan. Although in Polish and Danish it apparently can also be an insult and a word for a pimp?

[GodzillaLouise]

If you use surnames that end in single vowel + K (e.g. Choksondik), they will sound Slavic to many people.

Ah, I see. So the answer is probably not, as Dutch, as I just looked up, is not a Slavic language.

Personally, I never put much thought into what his nationality would be. So, seeing as I haven’t decided what the Netherlands’ situation, or for the most part any nation’s situation, is in his time (and thus can’t determine the plausibility of his success), I’ll go ahead and change his nationality, as I don’t really imagine him being an immigrant. But first, any recommendations on what would make sense with his surname, or do you think any Slavic nationality would do?

Just to give more info... the suffix -ik creates nouns from adjectives, and is also widely used as a diminutive in east/west (not south) slavic. More specifically, though, -nik in particular creates nouns from participles (i.e. originally verbs) and is similar to English -er, a doer of things. It usually occurs in names indicating ancestral occupations. As well as Slavic is also apparently appears in Estonian (presumably by borrowing from Russian) and Latvian/Lithuanian may have similar suffixes either by borrowing or by descent from PRoto-Balto-Slavic; these may be spelled differently, but might be respelled in the Slavic manner if someone's ancestors moved to a different country.

I don't speak Slavic languages so I can't help you much. A quick look on wikipedia suggests slavic root vrsha-, fish trap, which can have -a- in some languages (Bularian, Belarussian), or Bulgarian varsha, "to do" (perhaps a 'varshanik' could be a 'doer'? maker? accomplisher?). But these are all with a -sh- sound. Warsaw in Poland comes from warsza-, but that's an abbreviation of Czech Vratislav, apparently, so I don't know if you could stick -nik on the end of it. And it would have W-, but maybe if the family moved somewhere else it could be respelled. Or there are words varsa- and varsi- in finnic languages?

I assume it's not a real Slavic surname so would have to be due to the family moving and the name being misheard/respelled? But as I say you'd probably better find an actual Slavic speaker!

"Alfons" is apparently a name in German, Dutch, Swedish and Polish, as well as Catalan. Although in Polish and Danish it apparently can also be an insult and a word for a pimp?

Ok, so there’s a lot of approaches there. Honestly, with all this information, at this point I’ll say his surname is “Vrshanik”, which would come from the vrsha- root that you mentioned, and say that he’s from Bulgaria. As for his given name, I’ll change it to Andrei (personally, I should be able to handle the changes better with his given name being the one changed), as, at least according to behindthename.com, that’s an actual Bulgarian given name.

[Salmoneus]

I think in Bulgarian it would be transliterated "vǎ́ršanik" (if that shows up for you - for me the stacked diacritics don't work). Which I guess could be spelled 'Varsanik' in an English-language newspaper or the like. In Cyrillic, въ́ршаник, I think?

But again, you probably want to wait until someone who actually knows what they're talking about shows up!


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[incidentally, my actually first reaction to a name like 'Varsenik' isn't 'Slavic', it's 'Volapuk'... but that's not very representative, I don't think!]