Xanathar's 18 Pages of What??

cbwjm

Seb-wejem
Another not so nice naming custom, giving abandoned children a surname that marks them as just that, like in the Spanish surnames Iglesias -found in the church-, Cruz-raised by the people of the cross-, Expósito -exposed aka. foundling-, Blanco -last name in blank- or Aparicio -appeared out of nowhere-.
I actually quite like that naming convention.
 

log in or register to remove this ad


Azzy

ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ
From Moshe to Superman, many archetypes are foundlings.

A while ago, it occurred to me that Superman is the quintessential illegal immigrant that epitomizes American ideals (or, at least, what American ideals should be). :D
 

MoonSong

Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
I actually quite like that naming convention.

Well, yes, it works quite nicely on a fantasy game. Not so much in real life where I bet it kinda sucked...

Another naming convention to take in mind -though it requires a developed ingame zodiac/calendar-. In the ancient Anahuac people would have four names: the first a calendaric name based on the day of birth (or naming ceremony if it was a particularly unlucky day), the second a given name as chosen by the parents -though most of the time it was after their totem animal-, the third one a nickname used by close family and friends, the fourth one a secret ceremonial name known only by you, your parents, and your local sage that marked your fate and calling in life. This was some kind of magical/ceremonial name that was a great deal, so nobody but the gods as meant to know it.

For example legendary emperor and founder of Tollan: Ce-Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, Ce-Acatl was his date of birth -a day that predicted both great glory and great calamity-, Topiltzin -Our Lord- was his given name, Quetzalcoatl was his secret name. Of course revealing your secret name was a bad idea, as shown by his fate, as he got drunk, committed incest, desecrated Quetzalcoatl's temple and left Tollan in disgrace swearing to return one day. (If this sounds exactly like the legend of Quetzalcoatl is because it is essentially the same legend. Whether he was an historical figure that faded into myth or a purely mythical construct to begin with, later oral tradition confounded and identified him with Quetzalcoatl the god, just to reinforce how big of a deal secret names were.)

The calendaric name convention is also the reason indigenous people and Mexican people in general up to the later half of the 20th century embraced the European custom of naming people after the patron saint of their birth date. It was just a matter of replacing one calendar with another.

As for the totem animal, in some regions the father of a newborn would mark a circle with cal on the ground and the first animal to leave its footsteps on the line would be the totem animal and added as another name to the child. Of course it later got ridiculous when Pedros Bicicleta and Marias Carro started to pop up...
 

Kurotowa

Legend
If we're listing naming conventions, we really shouldn't overlook profession. Smith, Weaver, Fletcher, Baker, there's a laundry list of them. "John the baker" becomes "John Baker" and when the names become permanent his kids are Bakers even if they aren't bakers.
 

Yaarel

He Mage
It seems European clan names (last names) start showing up roughly 1300s and 1400s, starting with the nobility and eventually most people.

Four main types of clan names are.
• name of parent (usually father)
• place of origin
• occupation
• nickname



By roughly the 1800s, laws were requiring people to use clan names, but such laws were sometimes ignored.
 
Last edited:

Azzy

ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ
It seems European clan names (last names) start showing up roughly 1300s and 1400s, starting with the nobility and eventually most people.

Four main types of clan names are.
• name of parent (usually father)
• place of origin
• occupation
• nickname

Then there's the Catholic confirmation names. I'm not sure when that started, though.
 

schnee

First Post
They well and truly did not tell us that. It was an erroneous news story title which was refuted directly by WOTC.

IIRC they said two things. "Humans are the most popular" and "Most tables don't use feats" and that got conflated together by people who didn't think through it clearly. Is that the thing Mearls (IIRC) corrected, via Twitter?
 

Yaarel

He Mage
IIRC they said two things. "Humans are the most popular" and "Most tables don't use feats" and that got conflated together by people who didn't think through it clearly. Is that the thing Mearls (IIRC) corrected, via Twitter?

It was Crawford who commented on nonvariant human as the most popular race. Crawford also contacted Morris to clear up the misinterpretation.

Here is the thread discussing it.
 


Remove ads

Top