#name discourse

[the-miami-heat]

omg, i can't with some ppl... why is people saying you can't name yourself Cotard because of Cotard syndrome... IT IS A FUCKING LAST NAME. like wdym i can't named myself after a doctor i love??? - Cotard / K9

[system-of-a-feather]

Okay small POC discourse, but to take the opposite approach to the "using closed culture names when you arent of the culture is harmful" - respecting closed culture names and that they are special and belong to those in the culture is honestly incredibly helpful and healing to POC as well - at least AAPI.

I as a part hold a lot of internalized Model Minority shit and used to literally struggle to convince myself I am Asian despite being half Asian, having been raised in a moderately heavy Asian environment, and having the majority of my friends be Asian while ALSO being VP of the Asian Club in highschool, while being told by everyone I am "just asian" growing up and getting all the usual stigma and judgement, while being "definitely not white" looking.

Identifying as "basically white" kept me safe and palatable to white people which helped us maintain the Model Minority pressure we had which played into a lot of the generational cultural trauma and even a partial role in some of the Actual Trauma stuff.

I felt I was unclean and appropriative and cringe and weird to use names from my own culture because I was "basically white" - I was "just like all those cringe weebs, koreaboos, and sinoboos that just take the name and make me feel violated and uncomfortable and I didn't want to do what they are doing." Little did I know, the reason I felt that way was BECAUSE it felt like it was violating Asian cultures, which is something that - even in my Asian-denial phase - inherently knew was something I deeply identified with and treasured.

If not for a lot of the rhetoric around transfolk and DID parts taking up names of cultures they dont belong to did I realize where it stemmed from and why it was weird and uncomfortable.

Even more so, its only when I started realizing that those names are not for people out of the culture, did I realize that the fact that I CAN use it, that people of the culture don't think it is WRONG for me to use those names, did I realize really that

Hold on, I AM actually Asian. I AM NOT white. (And if you want to tell me "You ARE half white" there is a difference between White in blood and White™. No I will not explain it.)

The whole Asian-denial phase of my life (which was literally until the last two years or so) was EXTREMELY detrimental to my mental health and was an EXTREMELY healing thing to break down to actually let myself live AS my self and live in full acceptance of myself

So even if "its just a name, its harmless" is your stance, please consider that some people who have gone through their whole life with generational and cultural trauma - that respecting the sacred nature of the names from their culture can be extremely supportive, healing, and helpful to supporting them in thriving past surviving what they've gone through.

Also @mitsukiisys cause you've been given shit on this and I wanted to add another perspective side to it.

[incorrect-bkdk-quotes]

the only way i can think to make it worse is if they went with "katsuki bakugou midoriya-bakugou" and "izuku midoriya bakugou-midoriya"

or they invent a name. bakumi idk

You're right that is absolutely worse whhhy the triple name the best i can do is katsuki midoriya-bakugo or katsuki bakugou-midoriya and the counterparts

[error-core-animations]

I believe that CC's real name is Evan for one reason: Michael is trans.

Now, that may seem unrelated at first, but let me explain.

Elizabeth and Evan both start with an E. Micheal was a spiteful teen who hated (and still hates) his dad.

William (and maybe Mommy Afton) would totally want a naming theme for his kids, so he went with "starts with E" cuz idk, he likes the letter or something?

Anyways, my point is, Michael changed his name to starting with a not-E out of spite, went on a rollercoaster gender journey, and found out he's trans.

[peevishpants]

i straight up dont know any non-asian Jeremies or Jerries or Lilies irl I can't tell if I just don't know enough white people so my sample size is too small, or if asians (specifically mostly Chinese people) Actually dominate the populations of those names

[mallowstep]

For the love of god, please consider renaming some cats, I've seen names like

"One-Eye, Halftail, Oddfoot, FLIPCLAW (what kind of prefix is 'Flip'?) Twigbranch, Clawface etc. Don't get me started on those atrocious SkyClan names with KITTYPET PREFIXES

Harrybrook, Snookthorn, Rileypool

Like tf?

so i'm going to start with saying! as a general rule, i love these names. i will address them each in turn, but i don't have a problem with warriors having "bad names," i have a problem with names that don't make sense given their context.

it does not make sense for blackfoot to be named blackkit, when he's mostly white. (and, as a colorpoint cat, i assume, would be born entirely white.) etc.

but i have no problem with bellaleaf, because well, yeah! makes sense to me.

after all, leaf was named leafdapple, why shouldn't bella be named bellaleaf.

i'm going to discuss each name you brought up in turn, and then, under the cut, i'm going to ramble about naming philosphies.

one-eye: i'm fine with this. i don't mind cats being named after their disabilities, not when it's an established part of warriors culture. (even if it doesn't happen anymore because people would be pissed about it.) i don't know if i think it's right, or if i think cats would have a problem with it, but i think it's good. i'd like to think most cats wouldn't have a problem with it, though. that said, for one-eye in particular, her name was already white-eye, so it feels redundant. food for thought, i suppose.

halftail: i'm not okay with this, because he lost...half his tail? trust me, as someone who had a cat with half a tail, you don't notice it. doesn't make sense. he can keep sparrowpelt, altho tbh i almost always forget about him.

oddfoot: oops i forget him initially! i actually assumed he was named odd because of numbers or something, but apparently it’s a deadfoot situation. we don’t know his kit name, so i’ll assume he was named as either an apprentice or a warrior to fit. it wouldn’t make sense for him to just have the prefix odd, and i’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn’t. if he did, however, i would have a problem with it because that makes his name a compound name, not because his leader renamed him.

flipclaw: i don't have a problem with it. what kind of name is flipkit? the kind of name a mother would give who looks a lot like the cat who traumatized her, i think. more importantly, i think it's cute! doesn't bother me. would i name an oc flipkit? probably not, but that's just me.

twigbranch: oh no i love her name. i love it! it's so cute. it means something, too! it has meaning. nope. no one is taking twigbranch away from me. i love it.

clawface: mixed. i don't really have a problem with a cat being named clawkit, but it feels...violent. shrug. i don't like it, but like, i also don't like sandynose.

and i won't directly address skyclan because uh i already stated my thoughts on them.

skyclan in particular, tho, it actually makes a lot of sense for their names to be like that. there is no reason to apply any clan norms to skyclan names.

i really hope they keep their names, too. tradition and legacy of names is important to them (pebbleshine and violetshine for the most direct example, but it's everywhere), and i want that to stay. i love that leafstar named her kit harrykit. never change skyclan.

as always, i want to say that i do not have a problem with anyone's methodology of naming cats. i do not care. i support every single name in existence (barring certain combinations of color and "-face," and anything in that vein), and i do not want to come across as telling you what you should do.

that includes you, anon! i do not think you should listen to me when i say i like these names. i think you should rename them whatever you want. (i strongly suggest reconsidering skyclan renames, tho. there's established reasons in canon for them to have those names, and i think it's a cool cultural thing worth exploring. i keep meaning to write a funny lil one-shot about it.)

but you know! if you want to rename them, go for it! i support you!

that said, here is what i think (and i am not an authority on this in any way, shape, or form) about names:

i've written extensively about naming traditions in the clans. if you want to read that, "names. leaders. meaning" and "names part two" are where i recommend you look. (note: first link is to my main, before i migrated warriors content here.)

i'm not going to go over any of that in detail, because well, i'd rather talk about something new?

anyway, i don't think there's a reason to rename the vast majority of cats. i have very, very, few rules. heck, in ashes, i even had squilf come out and say that there's not even a problem with cats sharing a prefix.

the two cats i have renamed are yellowstorm and runningcloud, both for very specific reasons: -fang is a suffix that only makes sense if you're a warrior, and yellowfang names runningpaw runningnose, but in this au, sagewhisker names him, and she doesn't seem like the type to give that kind of name.

in yellowfang's secret, which i do generally treat as canon, yellowfang explains runningnose's name. i don't have a problem with her giving that name to him in the slightest. i just don't think sagewhisker would, and that overrode my general conservative approach to cat names.

but i do think, to an extent, cats are named for the world around them. i explored this in "without warning," where cats can be named after all sorts of strange things (elevator is my favourite), because well, they don't know what strange names are and are not.

so, for example, if there was a kit named, say, chaffinchkit, i would probably rename them, because i've set my warriors in the pnw, and there are no chaffinches in america.

i would just name the kit finchkit, because really, a chaffinch just a specific type of finch anyway.

i also refuse to name a kit maggotkit. there are probably other canonical prefixes in this nature that i refuse, but maggot is the big one that comes to mind.

but i don't care that ferns are green and cats aren't green. maybe it's a name passed down through the generations, one they don't even remember the origin of, but now, it is a thunderclan name.

or maybe, it is given to a riverclan cat simply because their mother thinks ferns are nice and soft.

none of that matters to me, because i personally find limiting name to appearance is incredibly boring, and gives up a really nice chance to worldbuild.

in "fair is the night," ivypool and tigerheart have a brief conversation exploring this.

"ThunderClan is different," he says. "You don't use names in the same way. You don't know the Ivy before you. But ShadowClan isn't like that. Dawnpelt knows Dawncloud and Flametail knows Flamefur, but...I have Tigerstar." "That seems ineffective," Ivypool says. "You can get more mileage out of your names. Here, Ivy is for grey kits, right? But wiry ones. We need strong roots. And Dove is for grey kits, or white ones, but its for the ones who are born soft."

they go on, but i would never pass up an opportunity to explore that type of thing. (and yes i see the typo)

similarly, i like the renaming system. i am like, this close to saying i love it.

the only reason i don't make brightheart lostface in everything i write is because it'd be too much of a headache to remind people, and i also don't want to needlessly invite arguments about it.

she keeps her name in "saccharine tithes of love and glory" because it's the kind of au where i can throw small things like that, without worrying, because it fits, tonally.

i wish it didn't set a fic in a very specific tone, but it does, and so, i usually use brightheart.

(also, it's clear that she prefers brightheart in the books, and i respect that. i don't think, in my culture, that makes sense for her, but i've talked about my works as being on a spectrum between canon and me, and most stuff is far enough away from me that i call her brightheart.)

anyway.

part of it is, renaming cats is imposing my rules over canon. i feel that saying "flipclaw should be named something else" asserts that my world is correct, and canon is wrong.

like, tallstar as a name does not make sense in my windclan. a kit can't be tall, and i've established that windclan names are very literal. but i've let it go, because i chose to make that a rule, and now i live with it.

i hope i didn't come off as prescriptivist, here, because i honestly believe if you want to rename cats, you should. i'd even be happy to discuss alternatives.

for clawface, might i suggest scorchface? (the suffix is malleable, frankly, but i don't feel like thinking much about it.) scorch deliberately has negative connotations in shadowclan, so you keep the same effect as clawface. especially since it just kind of sounds ominous.

but as for what i will do, it is not rename cats. i like their names (especially skyclan's), in all their idiosyncratic glory.

[long-live--the-lesbians]

Nectarines/tangerine/clementine discourse over, let's talk about whoever named those yogurt tubes because I respect them and only them. 'go-gurt' slaps and it's british counterpart 'frube' is equally good

[gaybaggins]

on a scale of 1-10, how cursed are samdo & frowise as potential ship names?? 🤔🤔

(your url really got to me for a moment sjhdhd)

i wouldnt say either of them are cursed.. but if i had to choose:

samdo - 6.5

frowise - 2