Re: OT: Anthroponymics

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Thomas Wier <trwier@u...> wrote:
> From:    Carsten Becker <naranoieati@B...>
[cut-and-pasted out-of-order to keep together the parts to which I reply.]

> > OBConlang: Are there special naming patterns in your
> > conlangs? My Ayeri people go by happily with [family name]
> > [first name(s)].
>
> At one point I discussed this briefly on this list some years ago,
> but I can't seem to find it in the archives.  At any rate, the
> Phaleran government in the conculture has two chief executives,
> one hereditary and one elective, both serving for life.  But they
> have *only one naming* line, and as a result they usually have
> at least three or four names apiece, and each of those can be
> receive a number, like "Elthani III Aiasa IV Worunti (I)"
Interesting!  Is it available on-line for us to read?

[cut-and-pasted out-of-order to keep together the parts to which I reply.]

> From:    Carsten Becker <naranoieati@B...>
> > [snip]
> > Americans seem to be more liberal with
> > first names than other Western countries.
>
> But Liberal in what sense?  It is true that America does not have,
> and never has had, laws proscribing which names are legal and
> which are not -- unlike, say, the Danes and some other European
> countries.  But precisely for that reason one cannot easily
> generalize about American names; one can only talk about
> particular subcultures.  In my family, for example, every male,
> with one exception*, in my patriline going back for almost 300 years
> has had the first name of "Thomas", and I only narrowly avoided
> becoming "Thomas Percy Wier IV" (praise be, my mother vetoed
> this suggestion).  Many families in America, especially but not
> exclusively in the South, have strong traditions like this that
> informally constrain what names are possible.  Even that is only
> a generalization; in Texas, the name "Travis" is a fairly common
> name, since it honors the famous hero William Barret Travis
> who died in the Alamo. That Travis, however, had only one daughter
> before he died, and so his progeny are not yet so numerous that
> everyone who has the name first name "Travis" can trace their
> ancestry to him.
>
> *(The one exception was a certain David Stuart Wier, and he was
> born *200* years ago this year!)
> [snip]
> Mark Reed:
> > I find the common European practice of restricting the set of names you
> > can give your child utterly ridiculous. Many cultures find the idea of
> > giving their child a reused name abhorrent; aside from not moving to
> > those countries, they would seem to be out of luck.
>
> This is true;  I am told (by Jewish friends) that Jews have specific
> superstitions against it.  I can see both sides of this:  on the one
> hand, you don't want to define people by who their ancestors were,
> but on the other, people aren't defined by who their ancestors were
> anyways (in societies without titles of nobility that confer real
> advantages at least).  Personally, I like such traditions, and find
> that many people who don't like them usually do not do so because they
> have such traditions but choose to flout them, but rather because they
> don't have such traditions to begin with.  That is, the very fact that
> you can't trace your ancestry back 150 years means that you don't
> understand people who (like me and many people) can trace it back 500
> or 1000 years.
> (FWIW, I am the 11th person out of 28 people in my patriline in the last
> 1000 years with the name Thomas.)
I am reminded, by the above two exchanges (between Carsten & Tom and between
Mark & Tom), of a program I saw "some time ago" (sorry I can't remember when),
about a certain Greek island with the following "rules" for personal ("given",
"Christian") names:

Sons:
* The first-born son is always named after his father's father.
* The second son is always named after his mother's father.
* The third son is always named after his father's oldest brother, if his father
has or had a brother.
[I'm not sure about these next two rules coming up.]
* The fourth son is always named after his mother's oldest brother, if she has or had a brother.
* The fifth son is always named after his father's second-oldest brother,
etc.

Daughters:
* The first-born daughter is always named after her mother's mother.
* The second daughter is always named after her father's mother.
* The third daughter is always named after her mother's oldest sister, if her
mother has or had a sister. (This rule may be "... one of her mother's sisters
...", rather than strictly "her mother's oldest sister". But I'm sure I
remember the third son is named after his father's /oldest/ brother.)
[I'm not sure about these next two rules coming up.]
* The fourth daughter is always named after her father's oldest sister, if he has or had a sister.
* The fifth daughter is always named after her mother's second-oldest sister,
etc.

.....

I'm not sure the above "rules" are all there is to it on that island (of which I
can't recall the exact name); but, following those rules, the parents' right to
innovate a name only begins with the third son and/or third daughter, and,
even then, only if the father has no brothers (for the third son) and/or the
mother has no sisters (for the third daughter).

Has anyone else ever heard of this?

-----

Tom H.C. in MI




		
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