I read your rewrite from start to finish a few weeks ago, and kept forgetting to give you the compliments due to such great work! You tied up so many loose ends so wonderfully (especially Shadowclan! And Tall's actions at that climax really set up his future leadership beautifully), and your depiction of abuse was so astute and raw it really stuck with me. I love how fleshed out Windclan is, from politics to relationships (platonic and not) and anything in between. I recommended this to a friend frustrated with the latest book release, I hope they enjoy it as much as I did! <3
One tiny tidbit that's stayed in mind - if I recall (can't go back and check right now oop), Talltail was given the nane Tallkit with the specific understanding he would likely be named Talltail as a Warrior, with this being an old tradition. Are any other cats named similarly, or similar traditions in other Clans? It's a really cool idea and justification for some of the weirder canon names (who names a mostly-white kitten with black toes Blackkit unless it's definitely being named Blackfoot later?), and if it's alright with you I'd love to borrow the idea for my own writing! <3
Thank you!! I'm very glad you enjoyed reading!
For starters, yes you are definitely free to take inspiration from the idea that these predetermined prefix/suffix combos come from an old tradition, but I admit I only did it with a fairly negative reasoning in mind--that being since the suffix is the part of the name a cat typically earns themselves based on their own skills/personality/merits, Sandstone choosing a name that would predetermine the suffix was just another extension of him projecting his own ideals onto his kit at the expense of Talltail’s individuality, etc... I’ve actually never been a fan of names like this where the prefix is clearly predetermining the suffix (such as with Blackfoot, like you mentioned). I always felt it was really unfair to the apprentice to take away their opportunity to earn their own name. Talltail is the only cat in the allegiances with a name like this, as in my world this style of naming has fallen out of favor for that reason. With the exception I suppose of Clawface and Brokentail, but that’s a slightly different circumstance, although it stems from the same tradition. Injury-related names are chosen by the cat themselves upon reaching warriorhood rather then chosen for them by parents, hence why those characters have normal names, Buzzardpaw and Darkpaw, while apprentices. They at least had an opportunity to earn a normal name.
For where the tradition started across the clans, I hope you don't mind I'm taking this ask as an excuse to ramble a little about how I imagined the naming system origins because it's something I have fun thinking about! I never fully worked out every detail but I have had the rough shape of it floating around my head for a while
So, I don't envision the old style of names as a WindClan specific tradition, but a relic from the early early days of the clans, before they were officially clans as we know them, and were only just starting to organize themselves into small groups. I think the two-part naming style first began as nicknames, and were pretty much always referencing some literal visual aspect of the cat for a couple reasons:
1: these were rough times where no one had agreed upon codes, little medical training, and there were a lot of desperate cats with a kill-or-be-killed mindset. Ironically, many started referring to each other by blunt simplistic nicknames to avoid growing too personal with cats who you could reasonably expect to be dead any day, to spare themselves grief. You'd know a handful of cats by their scent and appearance and had short-lived tentative alliances with them. It was a courtesy then to not ask for real names. If you needed to address someone, or more likely if you needed to warn your allies about a potential dangerous cat who hunted nearby, it was better to just refer to them as “the white cat with the black tail” or “the pale cat with the dark stripes” (eventually short handed to things like “Black Tailed” and “Dark Striped” for simplicity.)
2: This reason is a little more silly but everyone is a former loner who isn't used to having to keep track of so many neighbors, and no one can remember all these new names, so it helps if their name is a literal visual part of them.
but mostly, I think the reason these names stuck around and became important is when they turned into something of a status symbol. You didn't choose the name yourself, it was made up by someone (often your enemies actually) and passed around by others, and that would only happen if you made yourself notable. like “having a visual-signifier nickname like this is a sign that you’ve become a cat that allies and rivals alike need to remember on sight, for their own sake” and you know, that's a very attractive concept to a bunch of cats who pride themselves on being tough. Battle scar nicknames were very common, as you can imagine, and were probably the most desirable as it made a cat look battle-hardened (those sorts of names are the most common way for old traditional names to carry on in modern day.) Thus what started as simple unofficial nicknames for the sake of easier communication eventually carried this...sort of romanticized sentiment with them. The better hunter/fighter you are, the more cats will have to take note of you and pass a name along to warn about you. The worst thing to be was a cat of so little consequence that nobody ever had cause to recognize you, you were effectively invisible, and that meant you probably weren't very impressive and no one would ally with you. These cats all desperately wanted to be remembered (a sentiment that persists in clan culture today what with how StarClan works, running mostly on the power of remembrance) if only so they could justify that all the suffering they were going through with trying to survive wasn’t for nothing. Thus being “named” by your peers, assuring you were recognized by appearance, was like...demanding that your face be remembered in the world, even if it wasn’t for good reasons. Eventually these simple nicknames became more important to the cats in the forest then their birth names (provided they had birth names in the first place. If they did, no one remembered them because nobody shared them)
When the clans officially formed and everyone started promising to kill each other less and value the lives of every cat in their group, the tradition was more cemented. The association of “this sort of name=importance” was firm in everyone’s mind, and so the leaders made sure that all their members had a nickname, as a symbol that they were all important and remembered already by merit of being part of a clan, and their names(/worth) shouldn’t be determined by their rivals. For a while those given nicknames may have been secondary names alongside a birth name, sort of like a last name (So, if Firestar had come into a clan in those times he probably would have been called something like "Rusty Flame-Furred"). At some point I suppose the nicknames became the only names
When -kit and -paw later became a tradition to separate kittens apart, the prefix that the parents give carries the memory of this--a word they feel is fitting to describe their kit appearance-wise (even if in a more colorful or metaphorical way), and the suffix represents the skills/personality/etc you develop and become known for on your own terms. Of course, there aren’t any hard rules about naming so no one is forced to follow that exactly
As for why Sandstone decided to choose a name closer to a nickname a cat might have gotten in those early days, he may have wanted to make a quiet statement with it. It’s a very notable name because most cats today wouldn’t have one like that, so it draws attention. There’s probably some level of boomer-type sentiment like “back in those days cats had to prove they were tough and could survive long enough to become a threat before they were deigned worthy of any name, therefore those types of names were better.” Maybe he thinks the abstract and metaphorical suffixes that are becoming more popular in the clans now defeats the purpose of why they had these names in the first place-- so they could be easily remembered by others, and more importantly by enemies. Or perhaps he just hated the idea of Heatherstar having any say in what his sons name might be so he thought it was better for him to determine one rather then her.
