Naming Conventions
Every person in the Known World carries a given name and, if they have a household behind them, a Famrae name. The given name is what people use. The Famrae name appears on paper, at a hearing, at a sale, and anywhere a household rather than a person is being named.
Naming a child
A child is named when it arrives, usually within the day. Medicine being what it is, a birth is an occasion rather than a risk, and no city waits to see whether the child will live before giving it something to be called.
Both parents choose, in most of the world. Eldershore is the exception, where the child enters the mother's line and the lineage hall will have opinions. A grandmother's opinion in particular is not easily set aside.
Where given names come from
Four sources, and most households mix them.
Qualities, taken straight from the philosophy. Djaerv for bold, Saety for truth, Kavira for capability. The commonest kind by a wide margin. Parents choosing one are naming an intention rather than describing a baby.
The natural world. Noet a star, Mwyska fog, Ravna the carrion bird, Vessa a flower. More common in Stormharbor and Eldershore than anywhere else.
The dead. A grandparent, or somebody the family wants kept in the room. Universal in Eldershore, where the lineage halls address the dead directly and a name is one of the ways a line keeps hold of its own. Common everywhere else.
The calendar. A child born on a festival day is frequently named for it. A Soyl or a Graedd in a room is a person whose birthday everybody already knows.
Gender in names
Names are neutral in principle and lean in practice, which is the arrangement the language itself has. Nothing in a name's form marks it. Gender, where it matters, is marked the way it is marked everywhere: broe- and sei- casually, da- and ma- formally. See Address and Titles.
In practice most names lean one way or the other by custom, everybody knows which, and a woman with a name that leans male is unremarkable and occasionally remarked upon.
City styles
One language is spoken everywhere, so these are accents of naming rather than separate name-stocks. Every name below is pronounceable in every city. What a name tells you is where its owner was born.
| City | Character | Examples | Leans male | Leans female |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stormharbor | Hard consonants, front clusters, endings in -r, -dh, -th, -a | Haldr, Brynae, Gunvaer, Sigra, Thorwy, Aslae, Ketra, Halvr, Staen, Rwyna, Esk, Vigdh, Olvir, Sverra, Daglif | Haldr, Thorwy, Halvr, Staen, Olvir | Brynae, Sigra, Aslae, Rwyna, Sverra |
| Clearhold | Open syllables, almost no clusters, endings in -a, -i, -o, -en | Chiyoe, Mwyna, Soera, Rinae, Haroe, Ywyn, Kaedh, Tenzwyn, Dolma, Soenam, Yuki, Narae, Pema, Jina, Taero | Tenzwyn, Soenam, Taero, Ywyn | Mwyna, Rinae, Dolma, Narae, Pema |
| Eldershore | Vowel-initial common, nasal clusters in the middle, strong rhythm, endings in -a and -o | Amaera, Adwae, Zwyri, Koefi, Thandwy, Olwa, Nwya, Aeyo, Kamae, Ifeya, Sanda, Obaen, Nyandae, Chaela, Mbeki | Koefi, Kamae, Obaen, Mbeki | Amaera, Zwyri, Thandwy, Nwya, Ifeya |
| Forgegate | Flowing, often three syllables, endings in -a, -ir, -an, -ein | Razwya, Jahaen, Mwyrza, Naesir, Faerida, Zaen, Anwaer, Shirein, Baeshir, Noura, Imraen, Saelima, Taehir, Gulnae, Yasmein | Jahaen, Naesir, Zaen, Imraen, Taehir | Razwya, Faerida, Noura, Saelima, Yasmein |
| Shining Reach | Northern and colonial, with a courtly gloss at the top | Elwyn, Maerien, Toebias, Caerolin, Aegustein, Roesalin, Clemaen, Joesefein, Havel, Bryce, Adelae, Marchand, Severein, Linnet, Corwyn | Toebias, Aegustein, Clemaen, Havel, Corwyn | Maerien, Caerolin, Roesalin, Adelae, Linnet |
| The Iron Coves | Everything at once, badly mixed; use-names do the real work | Vosk, Taela, Brann, Kib, Sura, Jahn, Mira, Dreg | See The Iron Coves#Names | |
Famrae names
Four kinds: a trade, a place, a descent, or a founder. Nine centuries have worn most of them past recognition, so a family called for a trade frequently has nobody in it who practises the trade and no idea the name was ever a trade at all.
Eldershore is the exception that keeps its clear. The lineage halls hold the records, the founder's name is on them, and a hall can tell a child exactly who they are descended from and in what order.
A spouse joins the other's Famrae and takes the name with it. Which of the two joins which is settled between the families; see Marriage and Partners.
Slaves
A new owner renames, and does it every time she is sold. The name goes the way the clothing and the Oethboend go, and a woman who has been sold three times has been called three things.
Not renaming is the unusual choice, and it is a statement.
About half of slave names come from the pool free people use. The other half are words rather than names, chosen for something about her: Vessa for a flower, Nyona for honey, Spirra for the hedgerow songbird, Noet for a star, Grael for the first green of spring, Sygra for the vine that gets into everything, Iskra for one who cuts, Twytwys for one who is quick, and Lobaeter for a woman who was ill when he bought her and never shook the name off.
A name chosen that way tells you a great deal about the owner and very little about her, which is understood by everybody and said by nobody.
Freed people and arrivals
A freed woman has a given name and no Famrae name, because she has no Famrae. She takes one when she has built something worth naming, which is usually her trade, and the day she first writes it down is a day she remembers. See Manumission.
An arrival keeps whatever they came with. It sounds wrong in every city and will for the rest of their life, which is one more thing marking them out alongside the accent and the gaps in what they know. Their old family name is a word with nothing attached to it, and it means exactly as much here as any sound would.
An arrival who is enslaved is renamed like anybody else, and the name they came with becomes a word only they know the meaning of.