Names

As part of my design principles, I wanted each model to have its own unique name. Neither Death Guard nor Daemons generally care about decoration, and given that each model has a unique look there is no compelling reason for them to have their names written on their armour as identifiers. Instead, I have written the name of each model on the edge of its base where appropriate. Only the Nurglings and Beasts of Nurgle / Chaos Spawn are unnamed, which is due to their nature as temporary creations of Nurgle's whim.

There is also a structure in the names: every Chaos Space Marine has the title of "Brother", indicating the ties between them and their equality, right up to the Daemon Prince Vromikos. The Great Unclean One, Shmalog, is titled "Father", and above him is Grandfather Nurgle himself. In this way, I am emphasising Nurgle's strong familial nature.

Chaos Space Marines

Many of the names used by Games Workshop for characters in the Imperium are based on Latin. To give a feeling of warriors that predate the current regime, I opted to use names based on Greek instead. These still sound like they could be Imperial in origin, but the different source language gives them a distinct style that stands out from Imperial names. Further this allowed me to use the Greek alphabet for various pieces of written text on the models, enhancing their otherworldly feel. As a handy bonus, the only playable Special Character for the Death Guard, Typhus, also has a Greek name.

This table lists all of the Chaos Space Marine models in my army, showing the meaning behind each of their names. Note that the Greek words here are missing their stress accents; this is because there are standard HTML entities for unaccented Greek letters, but not for accented letters, and I wanted to make sure that the contents of the page were viewable without requiring additional fonts.

Chaos Daemons

Another language that I have some familiarity with is Arabic. The flowing style of written Arabic lends itself very well to painted text, and its alien nature to most players in the UK made it ideal for me to use as a Daemonic script. The clincher is the selection of characters that are accented with triple dots, reminiscent of the symbol of Nurgle. I have used those characters where I can in order to add to the visual appeal for a Nurgle-themed army. In particular note that I have used the Tunisian gaf as this has triple dots, and therefore includes the symbol of Nurgle when writing "Nurgle" in Arabic.

Please take note! This is in no way intended to associate the Arabic culture with Chaos. Rather I have sufficient knowledge of the language to want to celebrate it in my modeling. This is possible for me only because of my family background: my father was born and raised in Egypt. I grew up exposed to Arabic language and culture, and studied both myself at school. So please, no angry e-mails telling me that I'm somehow implying that Arabs are Daemons.

This table lists all of the Chaos Daemon models in my army, showing their names written in both Arabic and Latin characters. There are no meanings to the names; they have been selected purely for their look and sound, with Greater Daemons having two-syllable names and Lesser Daemons having one-syllable names.

The following types of Daemon have not been given names due to their ephemeral nature or lack of sentience: Nurglings, Beasts of Nurgle, Chaos Spawn.