Babsidi—Ilisidi’s mecheita—male, or female?
Ok, dear readers—I have another question for you.
by CJ | Apr 18, 2012 | Journal | 57 comments
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“Strange” in a name is relative. “Scout” Willis was named after Atticus Finch’s daughter in “To Kill A Mockingbird” a book her mother greatly admired. “Rumer” Willis was named after the British writer Margaret Rumer Godden. They also have a sister “Tallulah” named for actress “Tallulah Bankhead.” As far as having a “weird name” goes, here in America, once you are 21, you can apply to the courts to have your name legally changed.
One of my new favorite names comes from the latest incarnation of Dr. Who — Amelia Pond’s daughter Melody Pond’s name ended up in translation as “River Song.” (Never mind that Alex Kingston is a favorite actress of mine. . . )
As for those Atevi names that go “against convention” — I just thought maybe the mismatch was due to to a mismatch in the “grammatic” gender of the name and the sex that usually got the name — like maybe the name of a particularly massive, sturdy tree was grammatically feminine, but used as a boy’s name for metaphorical reasons. You only have to look at French to see that the grammatic gender of a word frequently has no correlation whatever to what the word means.
And Ilisidi is tied with Bren as my favorite character. Awesome Ilisidi is awesome!
AFAIK, your name is whatever you want it to be, except for purposes of fraud. You can just take a new name and use it, but you must USE IT: change your driver’s license, credit card/bank accounts, wherever else you are known by the old name. You needn’t go to the courts, unless there is some special reason you need it to be officially recognized, e.g. you’re due some massive, contestable inheritance under the old name.
The common example is women changing their name on marriage.
IIRC, in most states, the marriage license, as a legal document, allows one or both parties to adopt a new legal name, efeective as of the date filed. In practice, I believe one has leeway in the choice of signiatures, 1st or middle name, with or without the initial of the omitted name, and so forth; but other than that, any legal document must use a name that is obviously and closely related to your “legal” name as filed.
Thanks for the implied question–it caused me to wonder and go look it up. (OK, it was only on Wikipedia, but that should be reasonably acceptable.)
Thanks, Paul. I am much edified. I should dig out our marriage license – the local forecast for 36 year old memories is hazy with localized morning fog. lol
Names tend to have long historical roots, and atypical endings are usually holdovers from an earlier stage of the language, or a separate language. Then again, sometimes a common word will seem good for a name and will become popular, or people will make up a word that sounds good (or lucky) to them.
Nearly all names seem to go back to primitive tribal roots, when a parent would give a child a name that meant something literal in their language. This includes Biblical names and European names. Then, a child or adult might get a nickname that would stick, or might be renamed for some special reason. Or perhaps to avoid messy entanglements with the authorities.
So most of us, if we dig back far enough in the word-history of names, have names that translate into fairly ordinary but somehow fortunate words. You might be a Sea-Friend or a Spear-Warrior or a Bee-Maiden or something like that.
Me? My first name, from my father, was very rare in the US and is now usually feminine. My dad’s parents read or heard it somewhere or knew someone, but it would not have been common there at all. Back in its country of origin, it’s either masculine or feminine, a fine name. …But I nearly always get calls and sometimes mail to Miss/Mrs./Ms. BlueCatShip, and once in a while, uh, feminine personal products. No, sorry, I’m male, I don’t have any of those….
My middle name, the name I go by, is more usual, a Biblical name. Going by your middle name confuses the crud out of forms and bureaucrats, and leads to strangeness. But perhaps that’s a blessing.
My full name, going all the way back to word origins, comes out something like: “Sea-Dweller/Sea-King, Son-of-the-Right-Favored-Hand, Man-With-White-Hair-Or-Complexion” That last bit is rare and dialectal, and one bit of name research claims that in the Middle Ages when Europeans began using surnames, not only did it mean you had fair/white hair or skin, but the “fair” and very pale hair or skin, or changeable hair color…meant you just might be friends of the faerie folk, or perhaps you were a changeling or one of the faerie folk yourself. This could be good or bad, depending upon point of view. But I had no idea that a name so close to a common last name would have that sort of association. Apparently, anyone, child or adult, whose hair was white-blond and changed back and forth to darker hair, was considered that way. Or…well, if you had odd habits or abilities ascribed to the faerie folk….
Huh, unrelated, it seems a friend’s grandson was named Gavin recently. I should’ve joked he should be very careful around knights wearing green…. (Gavin = Gawain)
Lol—if you broke down my name into its components, it comes out God’s-Gift Spear-chucker from the Cherry-orchard Village, or something like that…
In my intro college Latin class, the professor said he would give us two extra points on an exam if we translated our name into Latin. Mine translated as Aurora Ferox! I’ve always been pretty tickled by that. Ought to name a character in a short story that.
Fierce Dawn or Fierce Northern Lights In The Sky, huh?
Aurora, btw, would make a neat girl’s name. (I think I’ve seen it a couple of times, even.)
It was the Princess in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty( I think. One of the older Disney films, anyway), and one of my friends has a daughter named that. Oblivious to the Disney connection, I also habitually named all my early RPG characters that for many years.
Mine ends up translating into Wisdom Craftsman of the line of John >.<
Oh, and I don't know HOW you'd translate my middle name. I mean, the meaning of it is "who is like God?" but that doesn't mean that the person carrying the name is like God, it's a rhetorical question. How is that even a name?? Crazy ancient Hebrews.
The best I can put mine together is, “The humble one of the valley in the renowned spear-men clan.”
Hmm. Mine comes out to something like “Northern Gaelic Secretary.”
Names are such a strange thing. And no, there are no regulations as to what one can name a child in the US so strange names happen. For example, poor Moonbeam Unit Zappa and her brother Dweezil. There are many other poor unfortunates, but those two just happen to come to mind.
Historic names can be even worse, as culture changes around the victim of a poorly chosen moniker. One ancestor had the given name Greenberry, which seemed such an odd thing to name a child that it took me a while to realize that really WAS his proper name. I still don’t have any idea if another ancestor’s name Appling was the actual name or just a census taker’s closest approximation of something else.
Even in our own time, certain names that used to be popular are an object of ridicule for the poor victim. My own parents were totally innocent (they still ARE totally square) and had no clue when in the mid-sixties they named me Maryjane. I had to sit them down somewhere around sixth grade and explain WHY the kids at school were teasing me about my name. Other names in the current culture have developed new meanings that would leave previous generations totally befuddled. For example, Gay. Who in their right mind would name a child ‘Gay’ in this century? But it used to be a very popular name. I think the biggest issue with regulating name choice is that kids are obnoxious little snots and can always manage to find something to tease about, even with traditional names.
Homer Simpson, making sure his son’s name will be safe: “Aart, Bart, Cart, Dart, Eart…nope, no problem there!” [/Simpsons references>
I have step-daughters named Tarawyn and Syncione. They are as individual as their names.
arabic names are rather wonderful. I have a half-Pakistani friend called Amir Jamal. Amir means prince (as in Emir) Jamal means handsome. he is too! I have never called him Handsome Prince to his face though …..
Is “Jamal” from a different root than “gimel,” which is our source for “gamma” and “camel” both? (The Phoenician gimel letter, our gamma, is supposedly the head and neck of a camel.) That, by extension, evidently can mean “third” too.
interesting discussion about this root here http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003264.html
[tangent] My bread machine arrived yesterday. As soon as I get it unboxed, set up, and figure it out, I should have homemade, fresh bread over the weekend. [/tangent]
Yum!
Definitely male, and stated as such several times – and Nokhada is female. 🙂
Japanese given names can be anything, although most girls names I’ve heard are from plants, colors or other items from nature such as snow eg “Yuki”. Lots of boys seem to be named “number one” something eg “Ichiro”. Of course, since Japanese has so many homophones one doesn’t really know what the name is from without the kanji.
I was reading about Japanese names; apparently it’s a big cultural thing to have the girls be delicate flowers or other pure and innocent natural things. A girl with a name that implies a strong force of nature is rare.
Boys on the other hand are culturally named for heroes, or with names carrying meanings of strength, virility, and so forth. Interestingly, another common boys-name theme involves names evoking reliability, a strong work ethic, and other “tradesman’s values” as it were.
Then you get into anime character names, and nothing makes sense at all! 😀
The Japanese like to use irony and cultural references for fictional character names, I think, especially in manga and anime. Or, for that matter, they may also use parody and satire, or simply poke fun at themselves.
Case in point:
In Bleach, there’s a very mild-mannered character named Hanataro. He’s the juniormost in his group, younger, smaller, slightly higher and softer voice. He’s slightly klutzy but a nice guy, humble…in some ways, the poor guy’s a doormat. But he has a talent and love for healing, and he’s shown to care. He has a crush on a strong female character. There are a few in-jokes at his expense. He’s also shown to be a very loyal and protective friend, willing to put everyone he cares about above himself. In return, throughout the series, the other main characters (the core heroes) rely on him and really value him as a friend, brother, or perhaps love interest. Part of the character is, he just can’t seem to catch a break.
When the hero protagonist first meets Hanataro and finds out his name, the hero asks, “Your name is (something-something) *Flower?*” (with emphasis because it’s so unlikely for a boy’s name).) — The idea being, I think, that the series author was poking fun at as well as casting light on how Hanataro is perceived versus who he is and how he acts. (And I have a big soft spot for Hanataro. I’m not sure if it’s identifying with him or liking him or what it says about me, but it’s there.)
The series does play with words and names a good bit. It’s something the series author clearly has fun with and puts meaning/significance into.
I agree. It’s always fun to find those little references in character names. In Last Quarter (a reference to the phases of the moon) the female lead’s name is Mizuki, which means “beautiful moon.” In Deathnote, Light Yagami’s name, as he explains to an FBI agent he’s about to murder, is spelled with the kanji for moon, and night-god, and if you’ve seen it, you know his goal is to become the god of the new world through the mass murder of criminals. But I think my favorite might be Kyo Kara Maoh, where the protagonist, Yuri, gets flushed into an alternate dimension, yes through a toilet, where he discovers he’s the Demon King, and he’s so accustomed to people at home making funny puns of his name (which in Japanese is something like good-fortune/bad-fortune, and in English is changed to Yuri-is-for-urine) that he accidentally signs a royal proclamation with it.
fascinating –
and so are the naming choices of parents.
My screenname comes from translating my actual, German, first name ( which depending on who you ask is either Nobility or Battle-Maiden) into phonetically equivalent kanji (ashes and swamp mud) and back to English.