Onomastic Creativity as a Way of Creating a Virtual World of a Computer Game

The article is devoted to the analysis of the peculiarities of linguistic creativity of computer game developers when choosing or inventing proper names that marks the features of the virtual world of a computer game. The relevance of the study is due to the wide distribution of computer games, their structure complexity, genre diversity, the use of linguistic creativity techniques by game developers, including onomastic creativity, which has not previously been the subject of a separate study. In order to determine the dependence of the onomastic creativity of developers on the virtual world of the game, we analyzed proper names (onomasticon) obtained by the method of continuous sampling from two Russian-language computer games – “Atomic Heart”, the action of which takes place in the past (in the alternative USSR of the 1950s) and “Vangers”, the game events of which take place in the distant future. When working with the selected material, the methods of component, word-formation and stylistic analysis were used. The study showed that metaphorization is the main manifestation of linguistic creativity in the invention of proper names in computer games. With the help of artificially created names-metaphors, the game developers characterize the characters, their habitats and game locations by their appearance and function. The techniques of onomastic creativity are also noted, characterizing the virtual world of the game - the past and the future. The game “Atomic Heart” uses the techniques of indexing and abbreviation, typical for the nomination of weapons in the real world, as well as stylization techniques when inventing allusive names containing hints at real historical figures and famous places. This is how an alternative world of the USSR of the 1950s is created. The game “Vangers” used various techniques of language play: graphic, spelling, word-formation. These techniques were used when inventing the names of vehicles, as well as quasi-anthroponyms (names of fictional creatures, animate objects) and game locations in order to create a virtual world of the future.