Elven Surnames

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how does D+D do this? Are elven surnames done the same as Tolkien elvish surnames or does it have a different way of generating surnames? What is the significant of an elven surname? Lineage? Discription of birth place? An attribute discription?

I don't know if the 3.5 Player Handbook says anything about it, but my handbook happens to be roughly 90 miles away from my current location and I won't be able to get my hands on it any time soon.

 

That will be in settings books rather than the PHB. I would try googling for "D&D elven names". It will work, I'm sure, because I've been to a couple of such sites that way. Tolkien doesn't work but this doesn't mean I don't use Middle Earth names for my D&D characters.

 

Elven names are in the Player's Handbook. AFAIK, it does not give you a way of generating names in that language. How names in a fictional language are done is up to the DM.

Personally, I just like to think that elves just use a Common surname when dealing with Common-speaking people. (So Linattar* becomes Greenapple.)

* -- Let's suppose Lin means "green" and Attar means "apple" in Elven.

 

In Races of the Wild, you can find tables with many translations of names, or how to put them together.
I would never buy the book for only that, though.

 

I read about it in my Players handbook, and it says that elven surnames mean something like gemflower, moonwhisper and so on. I think it's a family name...

 

Corelleon, for instance, means legendary chief. Cor means legend/legendary and -lon (or -ellon) means chief. There are endless possibilities for creating elven names this way. Yay...

 

do Sun Elves create their surnames in the same way Moon Elves do or is there a different strategy for them?

 

I guess both are similar enough to go with either. Infact many settings switch gold/moon elves so i dont think that would be a problem.

 

A tad late and insignificant, I suppose, but here is my thought about that.
Both Sun and Moon Elves speak elven, and probably they pick their names the same way. But surely they choose names better fit to their culture. Sun Elves, more than other elves, are interested in reason and knowledge and possibly have names to show it.