Riordanverse: Gods and Mortals and Nicknames
So I wrote this in response to another post but it was kinda tangential so I’m gonna just slap it down as its own thing, too. Very rough and ready because I’m tired and have no free time at the moment, but if people are interested (and I can find time), I can absolutely try and tidy this up at some point! I believe it was @fearlessinger I originally breached this topic with some time back in the toa discord but there were probably a few others lurking as well...
But anyway: Gods and Mortals and Nicknames!
Specifically, the way that the gods never canonically shorten each other’s names, or use anything less than a full name (barring Dionysus’ chronic inability to say most demigods’ names correctly) to refer to each other and the demigods (with one glaring exception which I’ll get onto in a sec).
It almost reads as though there’s an etiquette there, that using their full name is a mark of respect - that you acknowledge their power and you’re not belittling it by bestowing some sort of pet name/nickname - and it’s interesting to me that they keep that up with the demigods (who we know they envy, thanks to Apollo dropping that little truth in his narration, and are of course the major source of their own worship and therefore power in the modern day). A key example here, and the one that contradicts fanon the most, is the fact that Apollo never, ever, calls Artemis anything other than “Artemis” or some variant of “sister” (titles being the alternative to using a full name, eg. “father” when they’re not trying to get Zeus’ attention!). There is no Arty or any other typical shortening one might expect from a twin.
That’s completely different to how a lot of (Western, I’m British and that’s the culture I can speak for; I won’t make assumptions on others) mortals view names; nicknames/pet names are very common when you’re close with someone and like someone. And we see it with several of the main characters:
Percy, of course, is the prime example. We all know it’s short for Perseus and we all know that Percy never, ever, goes by Perseus. He doesn’t like it when people call him that (and maybe that’s because it sounds a bit pretentious, or because Perseus is too much the shadow of his predecessor rather than him), and the only time people call him that is gods or monsters, or when he’s in trouble/people are intentionally trying to rile him.
Nico is another one, and one I didn’t realise about at all until THO, when Apollo refers to him as Nicholas. Honestly, I thought Nico was his full name until then, but I’ve been informed by someone with a far greater understanding of Italian names than I that Nicholas makes more sense as his full name than Nico, so there we have it.
Meg, leaning into TOA because that’s where this is going to go, is a third; she refuses to be called Margaret under any circumstances and if she got her way, no-one would even know Meg wasn’t her full name.
Will isn’t a main character (much to my ongoing disappointment), but we got canon confirmation that his full name is William, and yet it’s never used except when people close to him do that good old Full Naming Thing when they’re fake-mad.
Which leads me off to my point about names and etiquette and Apollo, our god who loves humanity and quite frankly, understands and respects humanity better than the rest of the gods (and yes, even pre-TOA but I’m not getting into that rn) so it makes sense that he might be willing to switch which etiquette he’s using depending on if he’s talking with/about mortals rather than gods.
Because Apollo calls Percy “Perseus”… but only sometimes, when he’s being a bit of a little shit because especially at the start of TOA, Apollo was really laying that facade on thick, lbr. Otherwise, unlike literally every other god, he calls him Percy - Percy’s preferred name. With Nico, Nico told him “it’s Nico”, and Apollo immediately switched to that, his preferred name, without hesitation. Meg, when asked, did give her full name but also made it clear that she hates it, and Apollo never used it.
And of course, there’s Will, Apollo’s beloved son, who he calls Will right from the start of THO, completely bucking the trend of full names unless requested otherwise, and being a lovely beacon of “Apollo and Will had enough interactions pre-BOO for Apollo to know Will’s preferred form of address and default to it when he’s mortal and half-conscious and very groggy to the point he barely recognises his own son - yet still uses his preferred name and not his full name”.
Dionysus, as mentioned earlier, can also buck the trend, but it seems to be much rarer, and with good reason - unlike Apollo, who gladly gets attached to mortals over and over and over again, he doesn’t want to get attached, so he distances himself with fake names most of the time (but uses full names when he does use them… except with Nico and Will, who are the only two demigods I can think of off the top of my head that Dionysus refers to by name (and nickname, no less) in every appearance he has with them. With Nico, I assume this is because of the therapy sessions and the way that he’s chosen to get close to him for some reason. Slightly less clear with Will, but considering it was from Apollo’s pov and therefore Apollo was there, I am fond of (and amused by) the idea that Dionysus knows better than to mess up Apollo’s kids names when his brother is there and will go all papa bear on him for getting it wrong. Maybe he calls him other names when Apollo isn’t in earshot, who knows…