What’s in a Name?

Kinship, as discussed in a previous post, is a complex thing. When I was in Syria, I was supposed to be learning a bit about local kinship systems and dynamics. Perhaps better said, I couldn’t help but learn about it, because it’s a major part of people’s lives. I remember the first time I asked about the translation for the word “my uncle.” There’s no single word for it. It can be ami (my father’s brother), khaali (my mother’s brother), zoj amti (my father’s sister’s husband), or zoj khaalti (my mother’s sister’s husband). Ditto for aunts. Cousins are even more fun, because there are separate terms for my mother’s sister’s son, mother’s sister’s daughter, mother’s brother’s son, mother’s brother’s daughter, and so on…

If nothing else, that whole “third cousin seven times removed or seventh cousin third times removed” question gets a lot easier if you have that kind of precision about family relationships.

Names and, more broadly, what we call people, are interesting things. We all have them, and they all tell a story not only about us as individuals, but also about our cultures, values, and relationships.

My Name Is…

It’s one of the first phrases we learn in a new language—how to introduce ourselves properly. In the U.S., we generally have a personal name, a middle name, and a family name. First names may have a legacy or may just be someone one’s parents or guardians liked. Some of us like our names, some of us don’t. Our middle names, similarly, may or may not have meaning. Mine “just sounded good with Kathleen,” but my brother’s middle name is my father’s first name. Our last names generally come from our father’s family.

As a culture, we take these things as a given. And names aren’t just a nicety, they’re legally recognized—just try changing your name without very good (culturally speaking) reason (i.e. marriage or divorce). It’s often not so easy and may even draw suspicion that you’re trying to hide some terrible crime you’ve committed. Someone might get a confirmation name, but that’s less common and often isn’t used legally. Official documents and forms allow and often require a middle name, but only one.

And when we marry? It is traditional for a woman to take her husband’s family’s (i.e father’s, father’s, father’s, etc.) name. That pattern there tells you something about traditions of marriage and gender in our culture, the history of male dominance, a society that is hetero-centric, perceptions of gender as a strict duality, and so on. Going against that norm is hard to do, both socially and legally, though is getting easier. “Double-barreled” (where one or both people getting married hyphenate their two last names together) names are becoming more common. Taking a non-traditional last name or even taking a new one are growing options.

But by no means is any of that the norm around the world. In Spain, “double-barreled” names where a child takes one last name from each parent has long been a practice, making it easier to trace back women’s lineages to some extent. In much of East Asia, family names go first and are often how you will refer to anyone in a formal setting, rather than using their personal name, but most are inherited from one’s father. In Arabic-speaking cultures, women generally keep their birth families’ last names when they get married (again, usually their father’s family name).

Family names aren’t even all that old a practice for some people. In Western European cultures, family names weren’t always common for, well, common people. If you had one at all, you might have had a clan name or your family name might have just meant “son/daughter of my parent.” When they became necessary, occupation-based names were a regular thing (e.g. Smith). In other cultures, family names were a whole memorized lineage that might go back generations. Or locations could become, essentially, names (“the Egyptian,” for instance). When I was in rural Afghanistan, it often wasn’t clear to me whether a local village was named after the family who lived there or vice versa. Possibly both.

All of these differences are tied into cultural values and perspectives. Naming practices can tell you who a person really “belongs” to—which family ties are most socially important (which doesn’t always correspond with meaningful—in fact, it can be easier to have a just loving relationship with family when there aren’t lots of social burdens that come along with it). It can tell you about the relative importance of individuals vice families or lineages. That doesn’t mean that individuals aren’t important, just that the cultural pressure is to put family before self. Names can also tell you who is important in society, or what locations matter, or what jobs there are.

And if you’d like a nice overview of naming conventions in our world, I’ve found this article to be a helpful resource and source of inspiration!

On Nicknames

Of course, we don’t always call people by their name. Nicknames aren’t universal, but a number of cultures use them, generally in less formal settings. In the U.S., shortening names to other names is something we routinely do—it’s so common that we often don’t ask before doing so—and when we do, we usually keep the first few letters of the original name. Kathleen becomes Kathy (which I don’t like) or Kate (also no) or Kat (that one’s okay). Jeffrey is Jeff. Javier is Javi. Elizabeth becomes Liz (well, sometimes we skip a letter or two). John is Jack.

I’ve never understood the John/Jack thing. Please comment if you know why that’s a thing.

Other cultures make plays on words or just keep different parts of the name. In Syria, they called me Katkoot, playing on the sound of Kat. But katkoot also means “baby chick.” I had a friend named Melissa, where they took the M and then called her Mishmish (“apricot”). I knew someone named Muhammed whose friends called him Hamoudy.

Lots of different options for nicknames, then, and how they might work.

What Did You Call Me?

And then there’s what we call people. In informal settings in the West, we go by our first names. That’s fine until you’re working with a colleague to help a person who just collapsed and is slowly regaining consciousness and, to check on them, you say, “I’m Kathleen, are you doing okay"?” and then your colleague says, “I’m Kathleen, are you doing okay?” and the poor person just stares in shock and horror between the two of you. (It doesn’t hurt that we were both tall brunettes, but that poor person must have thought they were seeing and hearing double.)

In more formal settings, we' use our last names, but with labels. I’m Dr. R—, my grandfather, uncle, father, and brother are both Mr. R—, my grandmother, mother and sister-in-law are all Mrs. R—, my sister is Miss (or Ms.) R—. If we had someone who was an officer in the military, they’d be Colonel R— (or whatever rank). Theoretically, if you’re ever addressing something to both my parents, you would write to Mr. and Mrs. S— R—.

Those honorifics are interesting (unless you’re trying to address wedding invitations, in which case they’re a nightmare). What we use for whom and what we think is important for them to denote. Nowadays, there’s no commonly used term to distinguish a married from an unmarried man, but socially, the naming convention suggests it’s more important we know that marital status for women. Medical, academic, and military (i.e. career) titles all socially outrank those, though, and are gender-neutral.

And again, things are different in other cultures. In Arabic-speaking cultures, people with children will often be referred to as Umm or Abu Tariq, for instance—Mother or Father of Tariq. In South Korea, you might refer to someone a little older than you as “older brother” or “older sister,” even if you’re not related, as it conveys respect. In Japan, they have a range of honorifics used at the end of names that are almost always used.

So how we address people can indicate the formality of relationships between people, social hierarchy, the importance of certain family relationships in society, and the importance of careers.

Names in Games

Alright, so the inevitable question of how and why we can in our roleplaying games. Because it adds depth to your worlds and your characters, of course!

I’ve made worlds where names have to be earned and tell the story of a person’s life and lineage in a poetic way. I’ve heard of worlds where a subset of people broke off from the naming traditions of their history as a deliberate show of them being reformist. It can add cool detail.

For instance, let’s look at the world of Maezam. One of my earliest PCs in Maezam was Esthemaia Shindatha Ushazirak-Shinvan Da’Auluanil. Her personal name was Esthemaia, but in this culture, they tend to use the second half of names for nicknames, so she goes by Maia. Shindatha is her TruthName. This name is given to every individual in Maezam by a priest when they are in their early teens. It has a meaning and is gifted by Maezam’s god—that meaning may be more or less clear, but is always apt (in Maia’s case, it means “Gift of the Sands”). This name is one’s most formal name is only used in formal settings or when one is in trouble with one’s parents.

The next two names are the TruthNames of Maia’s parents. In Maia’s case, she is closer to her mother, so she uses her mother’s TruthName before her father’s, but that’s a personal decision.

Her last name is her family name, which gets complex. In the upper classes of Maezam, children get their original family names based on whichever of their parents (gender/sex doesn’t matter here) is more socially prominent when they are born. In Maia’s case, that was her father, so she was born with the surname Al-Adarian (“home of the lion”). However, family names are passed down to the most deserving child of the next generation (which doesn’t have to be one’s own children), so Maia’s oldest brother retained the name Al-Adarian, but upon adulthood, Maia’s sister took their mother’s family name as she was designated to become the head of that line (which became more prominent by the time they were adults, much to Maia’s brother’s annoyance). Other children will usually keep their birth name if they’re not designated to take on that role. Once someone has their adult family name, they don’t change it on marriage, with one exception. If you marry up a class, you can either take your spouse’s name or you can petition the priests of Maezam’s god and get a new one. This happened to Maia, hence she had a name change. (If you’re wondering, her new last name means “Of the Dreamers”).

What names tell us about Maezam, then is that family and lineage matter, as does social status, but that status isn’t guaranteed to pass down to children. There is some meritocracy at work among the Maezami upper castes. But also that religion is very important—a TruthName carries more weight and distinction than all the others.

Did most of this ever come out in game? Not at all. The other players may not have even known about it. But when Maia was interacting with NPCs from Maezam, she might learn their TruthName and so learn something about them. Or she might recognize their family name and so know their social status within and outside their families.

Little things like names, then, can add a lot of depth to your worldbuilding as you think about how they work and how they tie into broader questions of family and even identity.