#naming conventions

[no-fall-damage-here]

This is a file in my notes app. I have no clue what the context was. The file is from 2020 so I guess the context is 2020, which is always a good explanation for anything.

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

[tetraswings]

small world-building concept/idea for wind waker:

hylians/humans in the Great Seas don’t have surnames. on places as small as islands, where everyone knows everyone, there really is no need for it. if you need to introduce yourself, you do so with your first name, followed by the island you hail from (ex: Link of Outset Island.) people having the same name on the same island is rare (mainly because it would get rather confusing.) but if it’s a name passed down in the same family line, it would be (given name) Jr./Sr. otherwise, if two people have the same given name and they are not related, it’s likely they’ll be given a nickname based on a physical characteristic.

if you are a merchant or pirate who lives primarily on the sea, you’d most likely introduce yourself with the name of your ship (this is more common with pirates, merchants are more likely to still give an island they hail from.) Some pirates may even introduce themselves as being “of the Great Seas.”

I imagine these naming conventions continue into New Hyrule Era, but some surnames do make a rare appearance, particularly if you have an important occupation.

[unspeakablearchives]

I have a question for you!

what's your opinion on government-approved names?

here in the USA, we have pretty lax restrictions on what you can name your kid (enter x-æ-a12 or... something) basically as long as it's not straight up naming your newborn hitler.

tho many countries have wayy narrower restrictions - Denmark, for example, has a list of 7k approved names, plus the given name must reflect the child's sex.

do you think this is a censorship issue, and should the government intrude on what you can name your child??

What's that? An oddly specific question that's only tangentially related to this blog's focus? Hell yeah. Don't mind if I do 😎

First off, let's explore current laws in the US in regards to naming children (lol wtf is wrong with me, what is this blog even about anymore? 😂)

I think that almost everywhere it has to be written out using ASCII characters (California might be in the process of changing this). ASCII contains plain letters in the English alphabet (capitalized or lowercase), without accent marks, punctuation, and numbers. So you can't name your kid 『打倒共匪』 even though that would obviously be metal as fuck. But it also means that some relatively common names like José, Zoë, or Lucía have to be written as Jose, Zoe, and Lucia.

I'm seeing that the Social Security Administration says... the SSN card has 26 spaces total for first/middle names, and 26 spaces for last name. Its internal fields allow 16 characters each for first and middle names and 21 for last name. So by my understanding that means... the maximum you can have is a 9 letter first name (plus a space), a 16 letter middle name, and a 21 letter last name. That means you're not allowed to name your child: Raghavendra Venkatasubramanya Kakaraparthi-Dharmavarapu, which actually seems like a pretty plausible name for a boy of Indian Telugu ancestry.

Multiple states seem to not allow numerals to be used in names. That's a bummer if you want to name your kid K8lyn

At least New Jersey, and probably others, don't allow "obscene" names. Although this concept is always up for debate, I would maybe caution parents against naming their kid something like Niggerfaggotbabyrapist. Well, at least in New Jersey.

I am wasting so much time on this lol. Okay anyways my opinion:

I think if you really squint, this topic at least censorship-adjacent, because names are expressive. They can carry all sorts of meanings related culture, religion, history, language, aesthetics, whatever.

Being forced to pick a name from a government-approved list cannot possibly be seen as neutral. It inevitably becomes a system where the state decides which identities are "normal" and which are not. That feels like the exact sort of bureaucratic cultural control that seems intended to punish immigrants, minorities, people who are just kind of generally weird, people from cultures the state doesn't understand, and anyone whose name doesn't fit the majority's idea of respectability.

Then again, naming your child is not the same as naming your band, your blog, or your shitty mixtape. A child is a separate person who has to live with the name and use it in day-to-day life. So I do actually think the government has some legitimate interest in making sure names are administratively usable and also just not outright abusive. But that interest should be extremely narrow.

I'm basically fine with rules like: the name has to be recordable in the government's system - so it can't be impossibly long, can't contain symbols that break databases, can't fraudulently claim an official title like "Judge" or "Dr." (even though that would obviously be hilarious for a baby), can't be actively abusive towards the child like a threat or slur, etc.

But once you go beyond that, I think the government should mostly fuck off.

[writingnothanyu]

Is it preferable for a Chinese character to be referred to by just their first or last name like or full name? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

No it's ok, that's what this blog is for.

In Chinese, usually the family name is the first component mentioned in the individual's name. Similar to how one would refer to someone 'Mr Young' or 'Monsieur Mallah,' in western society, it's to convey respect.

But in like, western wikipedias, I'm gonna be honest, I can never tell which name is the family name and the individual's name.

[blueoncemoon]

In Defense of Boring-Ass Names in Fantasy

Book reviewers: Authors, you can’t just call your capital city “The Capital”! That’s lazy worldbuilding!

Meanwhile, in real life: 

Tokyo. It sounds like an “exotic” and unique proper noun, yeah? That is, until you translate the name. “Tou” (東) means “east”, and “kyou” (京) means “capital”. The name of Japan’s largest city—its capital city in the east—literally means just that.

Side note: Prior to the 17th century, when Tokyo was established as Japan’s capital, the city was referred to by the name Edo (江戸), which translates to “bay entrance” or “estuary”. Three guesses as to why...

But “east capital” is at least a little bit more creative than just “The Capital”, right?! We’ve gotta at least give it some points for that, right?! Well, let’s talk about Kyoto, which was Japan’s capital before it shifted to Tokyo. There’s a reason Kyoto shares the same kanji “kyou” (京) with Tokyo—and if you guessed that’s because “Kyoto” literally translates into “Capital City”, you’d be correct!

With an affectionate sigh (due to its extensive etymology and oft-changing names), let’s look to Korea.

The easiest name to explain is Seoul (서울), which is a native Korean word literally translating to “Capital City”. It is believed to be derived from Seorabeol (서라벌) which originally referred to Gyeongju, Korea’s capital during the Silla Dynasty.

Throughout the Joseon Dynasty, Seoul was occasionally referred to as “Gyeongseong” (경성), which is a Sino-Korean word also meaning “Capital City”. This was the name by which Seoul was called during the Japanese occupation, as well, since Gyeongseong was the Korean version of the Japanese name Keijou (京城, “Capital City”).

Bonus Korean capital name: During the Goryeo Dynasty, Pyeongyang was called “Seogyeong” (서경), which means “Western Capital”.(Pyeongyang literally means “flat land” becaaaaause… the area is flat AF! Surprise!)

Now for China. Beijing (北京) and Nanjing (南京) mean “northern capital” and “southern capital” respectively, and the Mandarin name for Tokyo (Dongjing, 东京) means “eastern capital”.

Astana (Астана) in Kazakh means “capital city”. Additionally, very briefly in the early 20th century, Kazakhstan’s capital lay in the south-central region and was called Kzyl-Orda (Қызыл орда), meaning “red capital”.

After gaining independence in 1911, Mongolia’s capital was referred to as Niislel Khüree (Нийслэл Хүрээ, “capital camp”).

During multiple periods in history, Cambodia’s capital was Angkor, which is a vernacular form of the Sanskrit word “nagara” (नगर) which means “capital”.

As for Australia, my understanding is that “Canberra” is an Aboriginal word which translates to “meeting place” and linguistically serves the same purpose as “capital”.

These are just a few of the world’s capitals that are literally named some variant of “capital city” in their native tongues. Many more are named after geographical features, such as Algiers (which references the four islands found off the city’s cape) or Bukhansan (북한산), another historic name for Seoul which means “mountains north of Han (Great) River”.

Turns out, humans tend to be really fucking uncreative when it comes to naming things. Proper nouns—and location names in particular—have historically been descriptive and functional. They sound exotic or unique to us now due to linguistic drift or because they’re in a foreign language, but at one point in time (or to speakers of the language of origin) they were/are quite “boring” and uninventive.

If an author chooses not to create an entirely new language for their fictional world (which is understandable; not all authors are Tolkien, and even he drew heavily from Finnish and Welsh—as well as Greek and Latin—when constructing Quenya and Sindarin... to make no mention of his simply using Old English as a stand-in for Rohirric) it would make perfect sense for many of their new world’s names to be rendered in modern English, as Tolkien did for Westron. In such circumstance, these names would reasonably still bear the mark of their inspiration: whether that be their designation as the capital, or their surrounding geographical features.

And to put a final cap on things with the Tolkien mention, even he wasn’t above some linguistic “laziness”. Take, for example, the name of Théoden, King of the Rohirrim. In Old English, “þeoden” means “chief of a people”, ergo “King Théoden” literally means “King King”!

(It’s doubly adorable when taking into consideration the fact that Tolkien frequently inverted title and name when conveying the Rohirrim’s perspective, and yet even backward “Théoden King” still means “King King”!)

I think there is a lot to criticise in the current state of fiction publishing, where expediency and simplicity seem to win out all too frequently over care, consideration, and complexity. But next time you hear a BookTokker complaining about how yet another romantasy author has named their capital city “The Capital”, perhaps take a moment to ponder Tokyo, Gyeongseong or Astana.

[flashbackinthepan]

All of the recipes I'm typing up are separate documents. So I'm naming all the files the same as the recipe name.

When the recipe is named like Person's Dish, I'm naming the files just Person Dish. No apostrophe-S.

Usually this is fine. But then there's this:

[theotherwolfinsideyou]

Top 100 American Baby Names of 2025 Sorted by A/B/O Dynamic

Something I've seen under-discussed is the fact that in an Omegaverse setting, names would probably be sorted not just as male/female but as alpha/beta/omega as well. Names would be more dynamic, as names commonly go from masculine/feminine to neutral in our world, but they would stay generally consistent.

Here's what gender I think each of the top 100 American baby names of 2025 would be, sorted by vibes and vibes alone. The names in bold are names that I 100% think would be used only for that dynamic, and would seem weird on any of the others.

Alphas:

Female: Emma, Charlotte, Ava, Harper, Nova, Camila, Gianna, Scarlett, Eleanor, Elena, Elizabeth, Isla, Emilia, Maya, Naomi, Athena, Iris, Victoria, Madison, Valentina, Aaliyah, Addison, Emery, Amara, Ruby, Josie, Skylar, Maria, Leah, Kennedy, Ember, Audrey, Cora Male: Liam, Mateo, Lucas, Asher, Leo, Hudson, Muhammad, Maverick, Theodore, Jack, Benjamin, Sebastian, Samuel, Alexander, William, Josiah, Luke, Julian, Ezekiel, Isaac, Caleb, Jayden, Joseph, Adam, Amir, Atlas, Jaxon, Xavier, Andrew, Zion, Axel, Adriel Gender-Neutral: Avery, Riley, Carter, Hunter, Adriel

Betas:

Female: Olivia, Amelia, Sophia/Sofia, Evelyn, Violet, Hazel, Ivy, Willow, Layla, Chloe, Nora, Delilah, Lainey, Paisley, Lucy, Grace, Ayla, Emily, Kinsley, Sophie, Alice, Autumn, Sadie, Adeline, Eden, Hannah, Serenity, Nevaeh, Natalie, Clara, Savannah, Oakley Male: Noah, Elijah, Levi, James, Henry, Ethan, Michael, Elias, Wyatt, Mason, Owen, David, Aiden, Isaiah, Waylon, John, Matthew, Jacob, Nathan, Anthony, Cooper, Weston, Thomas, Lincoln, Wesley, Jeremiah, Walker, Christopher, Miles/Myles, Ryan, Easton, Everett, Parker, Christian

Omegas:

Female: Isabella, Mia, Elli, Luna, Aurora, Eliana, Aria, Lily, Mila, Ella, Penelope, Stella, Leilani, Zoey/Zoe, Brooklyn, Bella, Melody, Everly, Gabriella, Millie, Raelynn, Daisy, Lyla, Madelyn, Hailey, Jade, Anna, Lillian, Brielle, Liliana

Male: Oliver, Ezra, Luca/Luka, Grayson/Greyson, Daniel, Theo, Gabriel, Jackson, Santiago, Roman, Enzo, Nolan, Silas, Joshia, Rowan, Beau, Cameron, Colton, Bennett, Brooks, Jace,

Gender-Neutral: Kai, Logan, Eli, Micah, Charlie, River