What is the difference between 五大 and 五行?


Furthermore, is there a sensible way to combine either of the above with 龍 or
竜 to form a plausible given name (one that a native speaker would not find out
of place) with a meaning akin to "dragon of the five elements" or "five
elemental dragons"?

Edit: The given name would be for a (male) person.




# 五大

**大** sounds **big** , or great (as in size, mass, volume, etc). The Five
Great Lakes would be 五大湖.

# 五行

We might want to describe five basic/important things, without emphasizing its
"big"-ness. We don't say "Five Big Principles of Islam", but instead Five
**Pillars** of Islam - イスラム（の）五行. 行 is a brilliant choice here, because the
Kanji also expresses _activities/practices_. Yes, the Muslims indeed
**practice** the five pillars as activities.

# Others

There are other variations, such as Five **Colors** - 五色. The Dragons don't
need to be colorful. The five attributes are simply **expressed** as colors
like how the Buddhists assign colors to each of their five spiritual states.

* * *

# Names

## Assumptions

  * Serpentines **can** fly - I didn't think so, but it's probably my ignorance. This may be better handled by our friends over at [Myth & Folk SE](https://mythology.stackexchange.com/)

  * _Five elements_ point to [this oriental version](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxing_\(Chinese_philosophy\))

  * The Serpentines are from Eastern Asia - the Japanese tend to name Dragons with attributes, which is like naming your child "human with big eyes". I think that's pretty cruel compared to India, where the Dragons are often given unique "names". We'll use the Japanese naming convention for your Dragon(s)

  * The naming should work for both cases:

> one dragon with connection to the five elements or five dragons each
> connected to one element

## 五行を司る龍 (Dragon(s) Associated/Governing the Five Elements)

We're being verbose and trying to sounding modern. Conservatives will complain
about "feeling strange" or "sounds like a joke", which tends to attract down
votes. Ignore this unless you know what you're doing.

## 五行の龍 (Dragon(s) of the Five Elements)

This is less modern, but sounds humble. Variants would be:

  * 五行之龍 Sounds less modern, starting to look ancient
  * 五行ノ龍 Sounds less modern, but also cheesy

## 五行龍

Old school and simple.

## 五大龍

Sounds like " **Great** Dragon of Five" or "Five **Major** Dragon(s)" and less
affiliated with the "Elements", but would work.

# Additional Characteristics?

See how this could help, looking at actual Japanese examples:

  * 五頭竜大神 - number (5) + head + dragon + great + divine
  * 八大竜王 - number (8) + great + dragon + king

In your case:

  * 五行天龍 - number + element + heaven + dragon
  * 五行神龍 - number + element + divine + dragon
  * 五行龍神 - number + element + dragon + divine

# Bonus - 伍

Use 伍 to feel more _ancient_ and _antique_

# Bonus - 龍 and 竜

Some say one is divine and the other is evil, or one is Eastern and the other
is Western. There are always exceptions, so I'd advise you to not worry too
much, just pick one you like.

