Brian remarked that a lot of rivers are named "water." The Celtic word for water is uisge, which is the origin of the word "whiskey," but also appears in various forms in many river names. These forms may include Usk, Esk, Ax, Ex, Aven, and Avon. This means that a lot of river names have built-in redundancy, and mean "the river Water." We parsed out the meaning of Stratford on Avon, which breaks down to:
Strat - street
ford - place to cross water
on
Avon - water
Newcastle upon Tyne is another place name that began as literally descriptive (a new castle had been built there).
I remarked that it's possible to think of someone's personal name as an unparsed unit, as when in High School I used to think of my teacher's appelation, "Mr. Sturch," as a single unit. When I graduated, and the social context of usage changed, he asked me to call him Nicholas, and I found it very difficult!
Context of usage is absolutely critical when it comes to names. Context includes who is saying the name, who hears the name, and when and where it is said.
A great many surnames come from the names of jobs, but have lost their literal significance over time. With names like Carpenter, the original word is still in active use and we can tell that it has a literal significance, but with jobs that have become obsolete, like Fletcher, Cartwright, Carter, or even Smith, the name quickly becomes dissociated from its past meaning.
The pool of possible first names in the medieval period was very small.
Many virtues have been used as first names (Faith, Hope, Charity, etc.) - not just in English, but in other languages as well. Imani is a name that means "faith."
Names can be changed. One place where many names were changed was Ellis Island. On Ellis Island, the people checking immigrants into the United States often misheard names and wrote them down wrong, thereby changing them. There were also cases where people thought they were supposed to give their profession, and their profession was written down as their surname. Many people had heard rumors that goldsmiths and silversmiths were wanted in the US, so they told the Ellis Island officers those were their professions... and ended up with them as surnames.
When you're working in a secondary world, I encourage you not to simply make names up. Have some fun. Retcon some historical Easter Eggs.
I would love to see a speculative Ellis Island where names are being changed. The cultural issues surrounding those changes could be difficult but also fascinating. Racism definitely had a hand in those name changes. Conversion from Cyrillic or other alphabets into Latin may also have had an influence.
People who were enslaved in the US often had their names forcibly changed. Sometimes they ended up having to use the surnames of the slave owners, and this has sometimes led to people changing their names away from those names later.
People sometimes change their names, or take on new names, when they undergo religious conversions.
People can change their name if they are affirming a new gender identity.
People can assume a stage name.
Names are very often associated with social affiliations. Thus, if your social affiliations are changing, or the terms on which you engage socially are changing, a change of name becomes likely.
Cliff mentioned titles. We touched on this only briefly, but he mentioned that a Southern man who is respected may be called Colonel even if he is not in the military. He also mentioned that in his sitar school, there are special titles for a maestro who is Muslim (ustad), and other special ways for members of the gurana to indicate each other.
Paul mentioned that George, Duke of Clarence, is likely to be called Clarence rather than George.
Not everyone uses a family name as a surname. Sometimes there are clan names. In my Varin world, there are caste names. These group-affiliation names may come before or after the personal name. In fact, just recently, Japan asked American journalists to change their naming conventions so as to list the surname first and personal name second rather than doing it in the American order.
The Peasprout Chen books use naming very carefully, with a mix of Chinese, Japanese, and different naming conventions. Peasprout's name suggests her humble origins.
Morgan mentioned that there is a different between a name when it is spoken and when it is written. Do we need to spell a name? How important is that? (People make lots of different spellings for names that have similar sounds.)
A computer system codifies quite a number of assumptions about what form names are supposed to take. Is it all flexible to naming differences? It may be, or may not be. How flexible is the government when it comes to recording names?
Arkady Martine's books use names that consist of a number followed by a noun, like 17 Waterfall or 3 Seagrass. The characters in the book consider the meanings of these names as they encounter them.
Racial or ethnic affiliation can also often be guessed on the basis of name.
We also talked about signatures. Do we ever get advised on our signatures and what they should look like? We do get advised on penmanship. Cliff told us that he decided at one point that his signature was too legible, and obfuscated it on purpose. People don't necessarily sign their names with pens, but can use signet rings or stamps (like Japanese hanko).
We are expected to provide our signatures for banks, for school permissions, and for many other daily purposes. We may have to do book signings if we are authors! The signature becomes a visual object. We can make choices about how and why to write our name differently. Do we have to be able to sign quickly? Do we need to have it be hard to replicate? Are we executives, or doctors? Alethea Kontis makes beautiful, artistically decorated signatures.
In the United States for many years it was the tradition for a husband's name to take over the wife's name completely. Thus Ms. Marie Estelle marrying Mr. Tom Clintock would become Mrs. Tom Clintock. This custom has changed, however, and more women are either appearing as themselves with a new last name (Mrs. Marie Clintock) or not changing their names at all. The custom of giving children the father's last name creates pressure on the wife to take the husband's last name so the family will have a unified identifier. Many people are heiphenating names, also, to combine the two surnames. Some couples create a new name using letters from the old name. At this point, there are various approaches to naming when a couple becomes legally official.
What is the point of a family name? Is it to identify members of the same family? Is it to sustain a lineage of ancestors? Answer this question and you may get new ideas about how to handle surnames in a secondary world.
Spanish names tend to take the surnames of both parents, allowing linkage back along the lineage. These names do get very long sometimes!
Brian says that in his experience managing payroll across multiple countries, he's seen lots of naming styles, but the one he hasn't yet figured out is the one in Indonesia.
Names often have a signifier for the individual, and a signifier for a larger group of some kind. What is the nature of that group?
Don't forget to consider nicknames.
Sometimes people use patronymics, in which the surname is "child of X" where X is the father. Iceland still uses these names. It would also be possible to use matronymics.
Thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to this enjoyable discussion! This week, Dive into Worldbuilding meets on Tuesday, June 18th at 4pm to discuss What Deserves a Name? I hope you can join us! Join the Dive into Worldbuilding group on Facebook for the latest updates, links, and topics!
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