I hadn't considered how weird it might sound in German. For context, most of the names of people and places have German names and the translation is not always exact. My understanding. Frieren: To be cold Fern: Far distance Himmel: Sky/heaven Heiter: Cheerful Eisen: Iron Stark: Strength
Yes, the thing that makes the names weird to a German is that you cannot use those words as names in German. Frieren's is actually the worst one in the series, it is an infinitive form verb. When you build names in German it is almost always nouns or adjectives. We do have names like Gottlob (praise god) or Edeltraud (noble strength) but not Edel or Loben. Same in English. You don't mind names like Hunter or Tanner, but nobody is called Hunting or Tanning, or even worse "To Hunt". Himmel and Eisen are way better. Still weird, as such names are uncommon in German, you would always combine those words with something else. 'Himmelbert' or 'Eisenhart' (the latter being a real last name in Germany) would be fine. Stark, Heiter and Fern are also weird, but work a bit better. They still don't really sound like names, something is missing. And then of course most of the names are terribly on the nose. I don't want to spoil the series for you, but the character names VERY often are direct references to what the characters do or are good at. Which is strange, as names are usually assigned at birth. How did they know about... (grrr I want to use a better example but I think it is from volume 8) Heiter being cheerful or Stark being strong. The place names are similar. But for place names it works better because that's how many of those names work in real life anyway. IIRC there is a forest called 'Dunkel' or something, and a town in the plains that is called 'Weit'. They are a bit off as one would use nouns, such as 'Weite' and 'Schwarzwald' (the latter being a real forest near where I live). It means Black Forest (or dark forest actually, black used to be synonym for dark). Same in English. You wouldn't call an island just 'Long', you would call it 'Long Island'.