What are some alternate names for characters of Arthurian legend?

Question

I'm working on a Homebrew D&D campaign and have always thought the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the round table were cool. I planned on basing one of my kingdoms on them but didn't want it to be immediately obvious that the characters are from the legends. I'm looking for alternate names that might hint at all the major characters and locations like Arthur, Merlin, Morgana, Lancelot, Mordred, Guinevere, Camelot, etc.

Answer 1

Using any English/Welsh/Anglo, Teutonic, or Romance variant of the legendary names will likely have enough similarities to clue in your players quickly.

If you really want to disguise the nature of the names, try their meanings instead.

• Arthur: Bear
• Guinevere: White ghost
• Lancelot du Lac: Land (and his last name means "of the lake")
• Myrddin, or Merlin: Sea fort
• Camelot is the castle, so you could go for fair land, promised land, and the like.

You could then use a second language to disguise the meaning name: Urso for bear, Fantome for ghost, Terra for land, and so on.

Answer 2

Maybe use earlier Welsh forms of the names where possible?

Such as Artur/Arthur, Merlin/Myrddin, Gwenhwyfar/Guinevere, Caer Lleon/Camelot?

Answer 3

While not a complete list by any means, these are some unfamiliar name variants I could think of off the top of my head.

Generally, all forms of Arthur are too close to the original to fool anyone. The best I can think of is Artair, the Scottish form. Though you could use a Welsh/Old Brythonic name like Arthmael ("bear prince").

Morgana/Morgan le Fay is similarly difficult to obscure, since her earliest name is still Morgen. Marguel is the most unfamiliar form in this list.

Guinevere has many variants. Some of the more unfamiliar ones may be Guanhumara (Geoffrey of Monmouth's rendering in Latin), Wenneuereia (used by Gerald of Wales), and Findabair (the Irish cognate). Winlogee is presumably Guinevere in a carving on the archivolt of Modena Cathedral in Italy.

For Gawain, there's Gwalchmei (Welsh), Gualguanus (Geoffrey of Monmouth's rendering in Latin), and Gauvain (French). Balbhuaidh is the Irish form.

Arnive was the name of Arthur's mother, Igraine, in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival.

Bedwyr is Bedivere's original Welsh name. Beduerus is Geoffrey of Monmouth's rendering in Latin.

Galath and Lanslod for Galahad and Lancelot.

Medraut is one of many variants of Mordred. It's also the original.

Myrddin is the Welsh name for Merlin.

In place of Camelot, there is a pretty decent list of courts Arthur had, in Welsh sources: Caerleon (his capital according to Geoffrey of Monmouth), Mynyw, Pen Rhionydd, and Celliwig/Gelliwic.