thinking about alternative naming schemes for humans
examples from real life:
* English-style: Given Middle Family
* Iceland-style: Given (Middle?) (Father's Given)(gender marker)
* Japan-style: Family Given
and that's all I know - what are some other (real or fictional) naming systems?
@lizardsquid Indian style is really neat and I haven't quite wrapped my head around it. It's so varied there-- and it's near completely incompatible with English naming conventions. ^^;;
@mawr ooo yay, thanks!
@lizardsquid OH! and the Hawaiian naming convention is AWESOME. :D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_name
@mawr yesss this is amazing!!!!
also way more natural of a system - give everyone a single unique name
@lizardsquid soooooooooooo do you want me go into the complexing naming system of my stupid fantasy people
@Gaypow yes absolutely!!!!
Wordlbuidling Nonsense
@lizardsquid so in my fantasy world humans are the only species that can function as like "boom fireball wizard"
this is only because of careful breeding over centuries, so you have your name as follows {Fathers House} {Mothers House} {Given Name} {Title or Nickname, Usually what your friends call you over your given name} {Power}
The power being referred to is your bloodlines channeling ability, which is rated """""Scientifically"""""" by a special part of their society
Wordlbuidling Nonsense
@lizardsquid its fucking stupid lol
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@Gaypow it's not, this is amazing!!!
can I boost it?
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@lizardsquid sure??, I'm working on a wiki for my world
@lizardsquid also another irl naming system is the roman system which is {Family Name} {Given Name} {Title}
Julius Gaius Caesar.
Unless you were a woman in which case they don't give you a name your name is just the feminine of your family name and your title which you can inherit from a parent
Julia Caesar
@Gaypow @lizardsquid It's a little more complicated than that, I think. And changed over time. The cognomen (what you labelled 'title') was more like a nickname in some parts of roman history, and more like a given name in others.
Also the order of the names was inconsistent, but the usual ordering of Caesar's name is Gaius Iulius Caesar; Gaius was his praenomen.
@Felthry @lizardsquid yeah i was going from what i remembered from my history of rome class! I just checked my notes and you're right
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@lizardsquid i don't have conlangs like a won't so in my notes names in this culture are written translated like Children of Wild Boar, Of the Black Hall, Noble Wolf, Red Hair, Powerful
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@Gaypow that's still cool!
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@lizardsquid I'm big nerd oooooops, this world is just a canvas for speculative religion
@lizardsquid Hebrew (and Arabic?) is
Given [gender maker] (Father's Given)
In modern religious contexts, some of the liberal traditions have expanded that to
Given [gender marker] (Father's Given) ["and"] (Mother's Given)
(But that's definitely not everyday use.)
@lizardsquid OOH. Also, iirc ASL (and other sign languages??) have a very Chosen Name type thing? Which is worth looking into.
@lizardsquid if you count it as different from English-style, the Spanish convention of inheriting a family name from both father and mother
@sigmaleph @lizardsquid Russian is Given Father-Suffix Family
@lizardsquid there's an aspect of chinese naming in which siblings sometimes share the first character of their two-character given names
@lizardsquid I know for a fact that many Indigenous Australian communities use [given name] [skin group], Inuit traditionally go by any number of (usually mononymous) names depending on context, Arabic and Ancient Roman names are a whole subject of their own.
In my own universe, in Standard Isarthakan the default order is [given name] [family name] unless the given name has a case ending appended to it (in which case it goes last), often including clan names/alt. last names where applicable.
@lizardsquid The best one I ever came up with was for a particularly group>individual-minded dwarven society.
They referred to people by the largest group they represented, only getting more specific if there was a need to differentiate between individuals. So a typical name structure would be Species Nation City District Clan Given. If someone was the only human in the room, they'd just be called "Human."
And then you introduce membership in organisations, and things get really complicated.
@lizardsquid I really loved those dwarves. They also covered everything they made with intricate patterns that were encoded with information. So their complex names were somewhat simplified by the fact that their clothes and armour effectively had their names, titles and deeds written on them. Dwarven streets would be engraved with their names and what could be found on them, while shop fronts would describe the nature of the businesses they contained.
@Caelyn @lizardsquid
I mean, it makes sense. You are acting, in whatever context, as the representative of the people most like you in that context. It's like when the academic teams I was on in high school went to compete at another school, and the coach would always warn us to be on our best behavior, because we carried our school's reputation with us.
I wish that wasn't just something we told
children. I wish more adults realized that when they spoke for themselves, they could also be seen as speaking for people like them. (This was not intended to be about the bogosity of "not all men", but that's where it seems to have ended up.)
@lizardsquid there is also single chosen name (in some tribes, afaik?)
@lizardsquid Spanish-style: Given (optional middle) (Father's Family) (Mother's Maiden)
Which is why some Spanish names can get so long; each of those family names are ALSO in the format of Father's Family Mothers Family
here's another naming scheme:
@chosen_name@instance