Made in Abyss names its world with unusual care. Riko is a familiar, two-syllable name — approachable, childlike, exactly right for an orphan who doesn't yet understand what she's walking into. The creatures that will try to kill her have names like Orb Piercer and Tamaugachi. The Narehate she meets in the sixth layer have names that don't fit any recognizable language. The naming system changes as you descend, and that change is doing work.
The Naming Gradient of the Abyss
The deeper you go, the stranger the names get. This is deliberate. Surface names are familiar; seventh-layer names are nearly unpronounceable. The series encodes the alienness of the Abyss into its nomenclature before a single piece of worldbuilding exposition.
Human, familiar, two-syllable — names that belong to a port city
- Riko, Reg, Nat
- Habo, Jiruo, Kiyui
- Shiggy, Letto
Still recognizable but increasingly strange — creatures named for what they do to you
- Orb Piercer
- Silkfang
- Madokajack
- Tamaugachi
Alien names that fit no recognizable linguistic tradition — deliberately unplaceable
- Majikaja
- Wazukyan
- Faputa
- Belaf
This gradient is the most useful tool for writers expanding the Made in Abyss universe. If your story is set in Orth or the upper layers, human names with Japanese and European patterns are appropriate. Once you pass the third layer, the names should begin to feel wrong in ways the reader can feel but can't explain.
Relic Naming: Three Different Traditions in One System
Relic names are the most inconsistent part of Made in Abyss naming — and this inconsistency is realistic. Relics were left by civilizations across thousands of years. They were named in different languages, by people with different cosmologies.
For original relic names, the three approaches from the series each work: the poetic (names that suggest what the relic promises or costs), the functional (names that describe its power), and the alien (names that suggest an unknowable origin). Mix the three within a single story and you capture the series' authentic feel of layered civilizations.
Writing Narehate Names: The Specific Challenge
Narehate are transformed humans — people who descended past the sixth layer and survived the curse in ways that cost them their humanity. Their names reflect this transformation. Canon Narehate names (Majikaja, Wazukyan, Faputa, Belaf) share specific qualities worth studying.
The pattern: Narehate names use consonant combinations that don't appear in common Japanese or European names (the -kaja in Majikaja, the -zukyan in Wazukyan), and they have an internal rhythm that feels deliberate without being beautiful. They sound like they were named by something that used to be human and remembers how language works, but no longer exactly why.
Creature Naming: Function and Ecology
Abyssal creature names follow a rough logic: they describe what the creature does to you, or what it looks like, often in a compound that sounds slightly clinical. Orb Piercer. Silkfang. Hollowmaw. The naming approach suggests a naturalist tradition — cave raiders who documented the Abyss's fauna as scientists would, in a world where the fauna is actively trying to kill them.
- Compound a body part or attack method with a material or movement (Rimfang, Velthorn)
- Use "Abyssal" as a prefix for deeper-layer creatures of unknown classification
- Give upper-layer creatures approachable names; lower-layer creatures alien ones
- Layer-appropriate threat level — a first-layer creature name shouldn't sound as horrifying as a fifth-layer one
- Use generic fantasy monster names (Shadowwolf, Darkbeast — wrong register entirely)
- Make every name threatening — the Abyss has creatures that are dangerous but also beautiful
- Over-explain in the name — Orb Piercer is three syllables; six-word descriptors belong in field notes, not names
- Ignore the curse mechanics — creatures in the sixth layer should feel qualitatively different from upper layers
Common Questions
Can I mix Japanese and English names in Made in Abyss fan fiction?
Yes — the source material does exactly this. Orth is a port city with a multicultural population, and the cave raiders who pass through carry names from multiple traditions. The constraint is tonal: upper-layer human names should feel grounded and somewhat familiar regardless of language origin. The alienness should increase with depth, not appear randomly based on nationality. A character from a distant country who descends to the third layer should still have a name that fits in the upper-layer register.
How should I name a settlement or outpost in the Abyss for my fan story?
Layer-appropriate: upper-layer settlements can use straightforward descriptive names (Raider's Rest, The Shallow Camp, Mossbend Station). Mid-layer settlements should have names that hint at what was found or lost there (Cairnwall, Netherbell, The Fractured Shelf). Sixth-layer settlement names should feel Narehate-influenced — longer, stranger, possibly named by or for the transformed beings who inhabit them. Ilblu is the canon model: short but completely alien, with no traceable etymology.
What's the right naming approach for a White Whistle-level character?
White Whistle Cave Raiders are the most powerful and most mythologized figures in the series — Lyza the Annihilator, Bondrewd the Novel, Ozen the Unmovable. Their canonical names follow a pattern: a given name (often two syllables, familiar) paired with an epithet that describes their effect on the world or their reputation among other raiders. The epithet is the characterization. For original White Whistles, pick a grounded given name first, then build the epithet from what makes them legendary — the verb or noun that follows them down the abyss.
