Naming your senshi

Gender:

First thing’s first. Decide whether or not your senshi is a boy or girl. This will seriously affect everything else that you do. Only women can be called Sailors. This is not a rule I made up. Here’s why:

Naoko Takeuchi based the uniforms of the original senshi on the typical Japanese school girl’s uniform, which are in turn based on sailor uniforms worn by members of the Navy. She has also said that Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon is about girl power. Finally, Sailormoon is part of the genre called Mahou Shoujo, which means ‘Magical Girl’. Girl. Not boy. Therefore, girls wear sailor collars and girls are sailors. Not men. Please, have respect for Naoko’s creation and stick to what she intended her world to be. While she has said that Sailormoon belongs to everyone, it’s still her creation and we play in it with her blessing. Don’t go against her things.

This said, this doesn’t mean that men have no place in the genre or in our fanfictions. Remember Tuxedo Kamen, our rather useless token guy? He’s a senshi. Not a sailor, but still, as learned in StarS, in possession of a true starseed/sailorcrystal. I don’t hold with the use of the term sailorcrystal as the term is used by a lot of creators as an excuse for going against a lot of rules.

Most male senshi characters tend to go by the title of Knight or have the suffix Kamen attached to their names. Both are valid and I’ve seen lots of other titles for them. I’ve also heard of some that have no title beyond their name.

Proper naming:

Also, senshi names are one word, not two, and should be written as Sailormoon and not Sailor Moon. Why? Not everyone follows this rule, but it’s something to consider, especially as in Japanese when they’re writing out the names of the characters, this is how they’re written. While you can argue that the Japanese language doesn’t use spaces, consider this. Whenever they write Sailormoon out in romanji (English lettering), it’s always a single word.

Onto the names:

There are several sources for giving your senshi her name. Be warned. Many are overdone to the point of being clichéd. If you can help it, avoid things like Earth, Sun, Star, you’re good. Don’t be afraid to use Google, Wikipedia.org, Pantheon.org (or the search engine of your choice) to find other names.

Here’s a lit of good places to start in your quest for a name:
Zodiac, Constellations, Asteroids, Moons of other planets in the solar system, special phenomena, mythology, or even create your own star system with made up names and stuff. I know some people who have used the last option and they have some fabulous senshi.

A rule I try to stick by is one I was told in high school: senshi always have the name of something from space in their name (Starfigter, Starmaker, Sailormoon, Sailorjuno, etc). So how do I explain the animamates? Simple. They’re either not true senshi or they’re corrupted senshi who aren’t going by their real name. It depends on which source you’re looking at and how you interpret that source.

How does this apply to senshi based on mythology? That’s a sticky point with me. I have a few based on mythology. Some ancient cultures had stars or constellations that represented their deities. You could always say that there’s an asteroid or moon with that name. There are many explanations on how to work that in and that’s up to you as a writer.

If you’re making a senshi team rather than an individual, I recommend making them from the same source material. Don’t just throw a Sailorlibra, Knightzeus, Sailorcallisto, and a Sailornova together. It just looks sloppy and badly thought out. If you’re doing that, you’d best be prepared with a really, really good explanation.

For those who want to do a constellation senshi but don't want to use normal names, I found a list of the Modern Japanese names for the constellations.

Example:

We'll use my otaku senshi, Sailorma'at, as our example for this walk through. Ma'at is the Egyptian Goddess who personified the concepts of truth, cosmic order and justice. This concept was fundamental to Egyptian life and the rule of the Pharaohs. The Kings portrayed themselves constantly as "Beloved of Ma'at" and upholders of the universal order. This role was established by their divine predecessor Horus, who defeated the forces of the chaotic god Seth. As you can see by how I named her, this is a female character. How do I justify her name? Simple. I'm saying that there's an asteroid (not a big one) named for Ma'at.

Questions:

But I want to base my character on an element.
I'm not saying you shouldn't, but rather than having a Sailorfire etc, be clever about it. If you really had to, you could do something like Sailorstarfire (I've seen a few around). You could also go into mythology and find a fire deity and use that name for your senshi. Most mythos have deities that represent the elements at least in part.