: Re: How can I make names more distinctive without making them longer? In the point-of-view culture in my story, all of the women in priestly families have two-syllable names beginning with vowels.

@Sue2132873

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You wish to maintain the brevity of the names, so I would suggest inserting silent consonants at the end of some, changing Ara to Aragh or Arah to differentiate it visually from the other names.
You could also consider adding a "z" in the first syllable. Ara could become Azragh, Arzah, or Arzagh.
Minor changes to names can help make them easier for the reader to recognize as unique to the character. Some of your names do sound similar, but they obey the constraints you imposed. Using consonants that are pronounced as vowels in other languages might add variety unless the constraint requires a true vowel to be the initial letter.
If the vowel sound is essential, H is silent in some languages, so hotel is pronounced 'otel.
You might want to consider adding an apostrophe to a name, such as Eril, and it could become Er' il.
Changing the appearance of the name can be enough to make the reader see them as very different names.

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