Re: names in conlangs

On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 11:47 -0700, veritosproject@GMAIL.COM wrote:
> how do you g*s do names in your langs?  example:
Veldan has personal names from a variety of sources (probably to include
lost substrate languages) that are generally "opaque" (no meanings are
now attached to the names and they are regarded as being monothematic).
Names are given by the parents.  Very rarely an adult offspring may pick
a new name, though this would almost always be connected to some major
family event such as being disowned or "divorcing" an abusive family and
thus would likely involve either joining another family (and thus
getting a new surname, too) or very rarely simply creating a new
surname.

Surnames act rather like adjectives that describe the person as a member
of some extended family, often per an eponymous ancestor, who might have
been of either gender.  Surnames are the one common exception to the
rule that adjectives precede what they modify.  They further violate the
general form of adjectives in that they are not oxytones.  Some surnames
are of unknown origin, such as Tarcandos, the former royal family.

Patronymics and matronymics are found on occasion, where required, but
more often an informal locative is used (ette Marnasu = from Marna).
Families normally take some care to ensure that personal names are
unique among the members in a local area, so the latter is generally of
greater utility.

Descriptive epithets are absent from the formal naming practices and are
limited to raillery among friends (and to insults from enemies).


Cian Ross
cian@cox-internet.com
http://crlh.tzo.org/~cian/conlang/

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