Worldbuilding is about making places and people! Whether you worldbuild to write, for an RPG, or just for fun, welcome!
Names!
How does your culture do names? Are there multiple given names? Acquired names? Patronymics or matronymics? Surnames, family names, clan names?
What goes into the choosing of a given name and when do kids get them? Is there a period without a given name or a special naming ceremony? How are names acquired? At special times because of a change in stature or status or role?
Are there different kinds of family or clan or tribe associations that get tacked onto one's name? What order do surnames apply? In what situations are they preferred to the given name?
Tell us all about it!




The only con-culture where I have an articulated (to myself, anyway) naming tradition is for my generation ship story. There, everyone just has one name (no family names or anything) and generally (but not always) you use part of a parent's name to make the child's name. Add some stuff, remove some stuff, whatever. So for example there's a character named Tuwarep, and their child is named Tuwalin. Most names are 3+ syllables, and using a short for is a sign of closeness (or a faux-pas, if you didn't make sure the person was ok with it).
I like it though! I like how it builds off the parents especially, creating both the unique and family connection aspect of typical multiple names.
Thanks! I figured since it's a fairly limited population, generation ship and all, they wouldn't really need family names or profession names or that sort of thing. Plus, it works so that each adult is allowed one child (though procreation rights can be transfered to another adult if you don't want them), so having a naming convention that centers that made sense to me.
That's pretty neat, but I also wonder how easy to follow it would be for readers? I already have a very hard time differentiating characters with names that have the same first letter...
If the main characters all have distinct names though it's probably cool. (and it's definitely something I could see a culture storing as a tradition!)
Yeah, I'm gonna make sure that names aren't too close. I think Tuwarep and Tuwelin are okay, especially since they're different ages and very different personalities too, and Tuwelin is often called Tuwie in the scenes she's in. The only other related names I have, the names just have a syllable in common really (and not in the same position in the name, either, so that should be ok). It's not always the first part of the name that's duplicated so I can get away without too much confusion I think.
For my sci-fi stories, I mine the current 'most popular given name' lists on sites like Wikipedia. I especially try to mix-n-match names, because I figure colonies will be very effective melting pots. So Indian first name, Chinese last name. Korean first name, Russian last name, etc. In one of the stories, characters take new names of their choosing upon graduation if they're going to work for a particular company and a lot of those names tend to come from mix-n-match literature. Especially things like the Spoon River Anthology and greek mythology.
Over in my long-running, fuzzy fantasy world, there's a very basic set of name suffixes to indicate being named after someone, though that can be dropped in adulthood. So a boy called Mesel-in was named after someone named Mesel, but would either go by Meselin or just Mesel as an adult. For female charcters, it's -ina. Though this is some 20-yo worldbuildling and should I ever manage to get the story down properly (ahahaha), it might get scrapped out.
I like it though! Simple but flexible and with a lot of room for nuance.
Naming is very important for my main story, as geneaology/pedigree is very important to them. Typically a child will be given a first and one or more middle names at birth by either thier parents or grandparents or, if everyone agrees to defer, the head of the family. Sometimes, in families with many children, the elder children will be given the opportunity to name thier younger siblings. They can and will be overruled if the name chosen is inappropriate, however. Later in life many people may acquire a nickname, these are in no way an official addition.
Because bloodlines are so important, married women can acquire quite lengthy names, as they keep thier maiden name, take thier husband's name and if they remarry they will also take that husband's name while retaining that of thier prior husband (but only if there are living children from that marriage.) So a (noble)woman could be named Anne Eugenie Claribel Stuart Lewis Parsons Flowers Leighton if she had at least one surviving child from each of her past marriages and had married again. Her children will bear only thier given names and thier father's surname, they do not have to assume the full string.
In the case of adoption of a bastard child (if there is any doubt whatsoever, this does not happen, though the child may still be taken into the household,) the child's original last name may be retained as a middle name if the adoptee chooses to do so, and they will be given thier father's surname. In the case of a lady's bastard, if her father is amenable, he will adopt the child and it will bear only the mother's family name, rather than retain the surname of the known or supposed father. In cases where the bastard child is of nobility on both sides, adoption and renaming is generally settled in court and can be as simple as filing suit first or as complicated as proving wrongdoing (sometimes years after the fact) on the part of one parent/family or the other. There are exceptions to the rules, of course.
Most of the names would be perfectly familiar to us, if a bit old fashioned. There are a few archaic names, but for the most part, they're names you'd see in any nursing home in the States today.
Nice! I love the thoroughness and detail and how it works in various situations.
Inspired by a post about Slavic names on the conlang listserv. It made me think about how much naming conventions are tied to culture and I have a really, really strong tendency to have massive naming strategies, (exemplified here: https://www.imzy.com/liana_mir/post/names_eileci, just look at that mouthful of a name!: Kailaihara Ilenarys Koshon, Kulitena Rakhan Ashil Anantea Eilecea) that include given names used in childhood, acquired names given on coming of age or entering a new adult role, usually guardianship of some kind, family names AND clan names because I apparently love Clans and Households as social structures above almost any other. Wow, I'm predictable. That said.
Among the Tagani, childhood names are very clearly childhood names, frequently including diminutives or explicit child markers and concepts important to the parents but not necessarily the child. On reaching adulthood, children take on their "blooded" name, which is appropriate for anyone to say to them (sans the child status markers) and incorporates some achievement of the child. At this point, they also take on the clan name and possibly a patronymic or matronymic because it's established now that they have survived and are likely to continue to do so. (They kind of have a harsh life and a lot of early death is expected.)
In my Vardin world, given names remain important from childhood on through adulthood, even after acquired names have been applied. Given names are selected before birth and often go through professional namers to craft a name both packed with meaning and clearly a name rather than a word. When gifted children reach general mastery of their gift (usually well before the age of adulthood), they are bound and select their bound name at the bonding ceremony. This name is henceforth used for them when they are working or guarding, but generally not used in their personal lives. Their Household name is inherited at birth based on the marital status of the parents and can only be changed through marriage (of various kinds) or adoption.
For the Eileci clans, just see that link above. It's a little... involved.
In Kingdoms and Thorn, my modern-like world, at least there they have normal sensible given and family names like Western English names. Not everybody but close enough for government work. :D
The various moving parts of a safir’s spoken name throughout history include, generally in this order:
At the same time, though, a male’s name almost never consisted of anything more than $clan $given_name, and even the former wasn’t always there, so while a woman might be named Assarvrałahtau Metþedła Qassařaimlau Hālrloprīlalār Eišesarzāiar Uvorilanōiarađ kei Vessarāndr, her partner might simply be Lornar.
A safir's telepathic name is mainly a restatement of her mental signature, and in most cases is partially a descriptor of the person so named. Decoding of syrinx calls is ongoing.
I love the contrast between male/female names
Most of my worlds involve Humans on Earth so, naturally, most of their names are based on real cultures' naming processes. The only naming system I've come up with from scratch was for a "race" of sentient robots. As individuals, their personalities are largely dictated by an internal system consisting of eight component emotions which vary in value; that disposes them towards some emotions over others. Based on the exact value of each component emotion, a predominant personality trait tends to emerge and that is used as the individual's name upon "birth", though variations that take synonyms and language into account are prevalent. From there, the names of their parents are abbreviated to their first letters and appended to a string of letters which represents that individual's genealogy; if a letter is repeated, it will only be written once (ex. "AAA" would be "A3"). At the end of that string is a number which indicates which generation the named individual is.
So, if two of the first members of this race - Ambition 1 and Curiosity 1 - were to have a child with a predominant character trait that could be surmised as "brave", that child's name could be Bold AC2. If Bold AC2 had a frightful child with Stubborn MT2, that child could be Terror BSACMT3.
If that seems like it would get out of hand very quickly, it does, but they're robots so I tend not to think about it too much.
I still like it! It feels like realistic and thoughtful and suited to the fact that robots don't have the same difficulty as humans remembering alphanumeric strings.
So I've figured out a few things about how the Beldreeni do it, now! And I even have some examples, but I'll make a separate reply with those later.
The Beldreeni pick a name when they come of age, but that's not the first time they've changed names. They often go through three or four names before reaching adulthood (sometimes more, and of course there's always nicknames!).
Both parents (and other namegivers sometimes, like a grandparent who's been asked to do the honours) and later the youngster himself/herself often anguish a lot on finding a good name. The parents in order to give the child a good "base" to start with for the future changes, the youngster because after that point this is it, there will be no more changes, and their name needs to express so much, and -!!!
However, there's a saying that expresses a different attitude about names:
Sen to ōko di nenestu. 'The tree gives meaning to the root.'
Meaning: don't sweat it trying to find The Perfect Starting Name, or The Perfect Adult Name. The individual will grow into the name and give it the right meaning - gods be willing. The name is the root; how the person lives their life is the tree.
1. The very first name: The baby is given a name by parents or sometimes the male or female head of the household, often a grandparent. This first name is usually just one or two syllables. They get it fairly soon after birth.
2. The first Winter Name. The young child travels south with their family in the autumn and moves into the family's winter home. At some point they learn that once they start school, which happens after the Winter Solstice, they will have a new name in school. Sometimes they get the new name long before that. It's associated with their life in the south, village, town or city. Most of the time what happens is that their parents (or grandparents etc) add or change a syllable of their names, putting in a new syllable which can be meaningless or can be taken from a word signifying something about their southern life. Perhaps the way the child's parents make their living in the south; perhaps the name of the city, town, village, or neighbourhood they live in, or a feature of the place's geography; maybe the first syllable in the name of the city's etc patron deity, and so on. The child will commonly still be called by their original name at home, so at this point they wear parallel names. Although since their playmates in school will get to know them by their new name, the child might demand for their parents and extended family to call them that instead.
3. The Second Summer Name. Then the Vernal Equinox rolls around and it's time to start journeying north again. Now the child's Winter Name (can also called School Name, City Name, etc) gets put aside and they return to their original name - thus, the Second Summer Name can be the exact same one as the Very First Name. However, not infrequently they still get a new syllable added, a nickname etc. These aren't so much picked consciously as just arising, though. People tend to get creative and playful about names. Often the children are changing each other's names around as they're playing.
4. The Second Winter Name and The Shadow Name. And autumn comes around again and there's another long journey south. By this point the child's age is the equivalence of 12-14 in Earth years, and comparable to Earth humans of that age in terms of intellectual maturity. (But the bodies of humans on this planet grow up slower, with puberty happening later, which of course makes for a mental difference as well.)
The child returns to the winter place and now, depending on the family's location and finances, they either start working to help making ends meet or go to the bigger school in a city 1. Customs differ at this point depending on clan or region. Some pick a "Shadow Name" (more on this below) already; others either go back to their First Winter Name at first, or pick a new Winter Name for a while before it's time to switch once more. Usually the child will pick their own name by now, but they need the parents and/or head of household to approve it.
Those who start to work full-time, in the parent's trade or as apprentices somewhere else, often want a name reflecting their work, but their older coworkers tend to laugh at this and just call them by a nickname instead.
The Shadow Name, then, is worn by young people from some point during their second autumn or winter and onwards until they turn two and come of age in the next summer. In our terms, they're totally teenagers, if mostly rather non-sexual teenagers until the final stretch. But they are still seen as being in flux, in-between childhood and adulthood, that it's normal for them to question themselves and everything; to be silly and angsty and serious and sometimes alarmingly childish. The Shadow Names they pick are often a little on the Gothic, mysterious, Romantic side of things. If by no means always!
(Perhaps the basis for this custom comes from an old fear that adolescents are more vulnerable to malevolent supernatural beings than either children or adults, due to their more uncertain, mixed nature allegedly putting them closer to the spiritual realm. The Shadow Names might have been a way of disguising them from such forces.)
ETA: I forgot to note that in the larger cities at least, this is also the point where they'll start to give out their clan name more often than not when identifying themselves. The Beldreeni are the largest ethnic group on the continent, so odds are there's a number of other people out there with the same personal name in the same city. That wasn't a big worry for a young child who mainly just lived in a much smaller circle, but now as they grow older and move about all on their own in the city, it's different. Adding a clan name helps with differentiating to some degree. (But only to some degree, as with last names in our world. Clans can be large in number, and some names are very popular.)
5. Adult Name. And then finally it's time for them to pick their Adult Name and have it declared in a solemn but often also festive ceremony after, or perhaps on, their birthday. They say that in the old days the Adult Name would be handed out by the clan leader(s)2; or if that wasn't possible, one of the heads of the household. These days the individuals pick their name themselves and the clan leaders just sign their approval.
After this point, they're supposed to have the same name in the south as in the north, in winter as in summer. In practice, though, many still get different appellations and nicknames depending on who they talk to and where, just as anywhere else. But it's at least not the same systematic difference as when they grow up.
I'm simplifying here. It's not quite as binary as that; there are part-time schools in the small towns which some attend for a while while spending the rest of their time working. In those cases, it's nearly always at home or in the family business the youngsters work.↩
Many clans have two leaders, one male and one female, just as with the heads of households.↩
As examples, I'll describe the "name journey" of three characters I made up just for this purpose, from birth to adulthood! A West Beldreeni girl, an East Beldreeni girl and an East Beldreeni boy.
The very first name. The West Beldreeni girl is called Rie, from a word meaning 'twig'. The East Beldreeni girl gets a longer name, Toleiros, which means 'dawn', 'early morning'. This could actually be a completely satisfactory adult name, but kids do get longer names like this at times, too. And the little boy's starting name is Dāyan, literally 'boy of the road' - a name with positive connotations for the Beldreeni.
The First Winter Name. Here it gets a bit more complicated. The boy is the easiest. His family lives in a town called Hiir in winter, a rather small town in the east, not far from the huge city of Morristo. In order to honour his new life, the boy gets the new name Dāhiir to use in school and perhaps elsewhere.
The East Beldreeni girl's family live in Morristo itself. Morristo, the largest city in the world, is built on a high hill, and its many towers and tall buildings make it almost look like a mountain from below. Referring to this, Toleiros gets the new name Tolrana, with rana meaning 'mountain' (and tol on its own means 'day').
The West Beldreeni girl's family live in the city of Meren. They give her the new name Morie, with the new syllable "Mo-" in front. While mo is a word in Beldreeni meaning 'event', the intent isn't to call their child 'event-twig'; in this context the added syllable is technically meaningless but the end result just happens to sound a lot like Morye ['morjɛ], a common name for girls among the Lakefolk people. The Lakefolk are quite prominent in Meren and according to tradition it was their ancestors who once founded the place. That being said, Morie's parents have no intention of trying to "pass her off" as being Lakefolk - she's going to a Beldreeni-speaking class in any case, in her first school - but rather to give a nod to the city she lives in and is a part of.
The Second Summer Name. Now the boy could go back to Dāyan, but at some point during the long journey north he gets a new nickname, and this sounds more mature and he grabs hold of it: Sendā, lit. 'tree road'. (This, too, could be an adult's name.)
Meanwhile, Tolrana goes back to being Toleiros but also gets to be called Tolayö ('day'+ 'sun') a lot during the long summer.
And Morie returns to being Rie but she, too, gets a new change at times, to Riene. This addition has no particular meaning that I know of.
The Shadow Names. The boy returns to the south in autumn like everyone else. He moves in with relatives in Morristo, where he attends the Morristo school of higher learning. He picks the name Gindā as his "Shadow Name". Gin means 'secret', 'hidden'; perhaps 'sneaky'. A name with the meaning 'Secret Road' would not be seen as a good name for an adult, but it's a perfectly fine Shadow Name.
Toleiros now changes again, picking the name Tolrume (from rume, 'cloud'). I think that one's pretty clever of her, not just fitting the theme of a Shadow Name but also going well with her previous names.
(She and Gindā attend the same school in Morristo, the 'Morristo University' for the lack of a better term in English, but that is a large school and they don't happen to even notice each other during their time there.)
And Rie doesn't go back to Morie but picks a new, similar preceding syllable: she becomes Sorie. This doesn't mean anything much or refer to any other language. She just happens to like the sound. Now, so on its own can be used to refer to higher gods - "So Rie" could conceivably be parsed as "The High God Twig" - but her parents didn't think there was any risk of it being seen as blasphemous. Besides, somewhat bizarre or boastful names are fine for Shadow Names, too.
Finally, the Adult Names! And now their bodies start changing, they wander north, they start to fall in love and lust. This is where the boy meets one of the girls: Tolrume and Gindā meet and fall head over heels for one another.
Gindā is quick to decide what his adult name will be: Teúludā, a rather poetic one with the literal meaning of 'moon road'. Tolrume is totally thrilled by this, and she starts to seriously consider mirroring herself after him and picking "Ayökiva" as her new name - literally 'sun path'. (Youngsters in love choosing their adult names to reflect each other are something they get warned about, like choosing a tattoo for the same reason in our world. Many still do it, however.)
In Tolrume's case, she retains some self-consciousness even while deeply in love and starts to worry that maybe Ayökiva is a bit too much like Teúludā's name, that they'll be a married couple everyone laughs at. So in the end, even though she does really like the sound of that name, she finally goes with something else she also likes: Toliko (lit. 'true day'). Not long after her Coming of Age, she goes with her fiancé on an "engagement trading journey", the custom called reki-hika among the Beldreeni. Unfortunately, they realise during that time they're not that well-suited for each other after all, and they break off the engagement. Everyone tells Toliko she must be grateful now that she hadn't picked Ayökiva for her name, but as a matter of fact she secretly thinks it would have been easier to go with it now that she no longer is going to marry Teúludā. She is still fine with her choice, though. (Sorry to make this part so long. Names fascinate me.)
As for Sorie, she goes through not one but two whirlwind romances this summer, first with a girl from the next village over and then with a boy visiting from another clan. Neither of those last, though, and have no real bearing on her name choice.
Her problem is that she actually really likes her very first name, Rie, but realises the meaning doesn't work for an adult, and it's also a bit too short for an Adult Name proper. She spends some time trying to find the string rie in other word combos, like Charïen ('Iron Law'), Maldrieko ('Under leaf'), or Krielle ('faihtful'), but isn't really satisfied. She also tries expanding on semantics instead, but while she thinks Telondon ('fruit' + 'branch') has a nice ring, it sounds to her a bit too much like she's counting on becoming pregnant soon.
Ultimately she goes back to her roots, no pun intended, and picks Ondonmarie. Literally "Branch-and-Twig". Looks silly in English, but in Beldreeni it works.
Love, love, love this! The stories are awesome (and I want to read them :grabby hands: )
No more stories about these three people, I'm afraid! They were just here to make us understand how names work better - I couldn't seem to make it clear to myself without seeing the process in action. But I'm very glad you liked it.
Oh well. :( :sigh:
Still, I love your imagination. :D
Thank you! I wasn't able to sketch out the process without getting at least a slight feel for the individuals involved. Who knows, perhaps I'll make use of them again someday... If nothing else, I can nick their names for sample sentence purposes while conlanging.
Love that idea.
I LOVE all the detail here and it feels realistic and feasible. (I should be more detailed when sharing things.) This is fascinating all around.
I'm very glad that it feels realistic! At first I was just thinking vaguely that there should be different names for summer and winter. but then I was thinking more properly about people's typical experiences growing up and how the community (communities) might view them; and came up with the above.
I'd just like to say that I haven't settled naming customs on the main world I'm building, and in fact I even have little ideas of what type of names people tend to have in the different cultures, despite my enthusiastic conlanging - but thanks to this thread, I think I've now come a good deal closer to knowing more, at least for one people! I now have some tentative thoughts as how their naming traditions tend to work, at least. So - great subject, and great answers so far! Very cool to see the way it's done in various people's worlds!
How exciting! do share when you get it hammered out. :D
So, in my culture, the Malayalee culture we name our children thusly: . The first name is the given name, and is almost always based on our astrology. And I don't mean Gemini, Sagittarius, etc. because we also have our own astrology system, with 30 something or more various stars you can be, and those aren't even specific days of the month but occur randomly. So, I was never told my father's birth star, but his given name was "Narayanan." Which apparently was based off of his astrology. . The second name is your clan name. My family is from the Nair clan, so our second name is always "Nair." It's unlike the middle name of westerners who. basically have it as a second given name. For us, it is our clan name. . Lastly, we have the Origin name. This name says where we are from. My father's origin name was "Kalapurakkal-Kottaram" which was a place where warriors were trained in to fight. My mother's origin name was "Aragaprakalam" which was the name of her family's fiefdom given to them by the Chera Kings. It's not the same as a surname, because it doesn't tell you their family: it just tells you their ancestral home.