Howdy all!
I am combining two topics today, shared by one slender thread. Names, they can be funny, amirite? So I will be doing a short dive into some lesser-known and famous judges, and then doing a bit of a deeper dive into Greyhawk, and more specifically ... why are the names so weird?
If you are looking only for your D&D-like substance, skip to part II. You won't miss anything.
I. Judges. they're just like us, except when they're dogs.
On this, a short apertif of my usual lawsplainers, I will discuss jurists- the final decisions makers. And by decision makers, I mean that they make the decision to get your case over with so they can go drinkin’, already.
But rather than be an in-depth discussion of jurisprudence, which I will save for another day, I would like to discuss my favorite judging names. See, a long time ago, when I was still learning to be a lawyer, I read these books with my fellow pre-lawyers (fun fact- the song "Baby Shark" is actually named for law student!). These books had collections of “cases” in them from which we could draw our own, wrong, conclusions.
And one judge kept popping up. Judge Learned Hand. So when a classmate asked me about Judge Learned Hand, I told them that “Learned Hand” was a name that judges used when they didn’t want to write their own names on opinion, much like Alan Smithee in Hollywood. Because who has a name like Learned Hand? I assumed my colleague knew that I was having what I colloquially referred to as “the fun,” until he then explained that concept to other students, and then to the professor after class.
We all learned a valuable lesson that day. My fellow classmate learned that Judge Learned Hand did, in fact, exist, while I learned that the joy you receive from the misery of others was the best joy that could be had; truly, why else would you go to law school? When people tell you that law school is to teach you to think like a lawyer ... that's exactly what they mean.
Anyway, some of my favorite judges and judging names, non-Supreme Court variety:
Judge Learned Hand. Yeah, he’s real, and he’s spectacular. Probably most famous today for his decision involving negligence, where he came up with the famous formula that liability results when B(urden of adequate protections) < P(robability that an incident will occur) * L(oss, or injury). This is probably the first, and most famous, attempt to “math,” law, greatly appreciated by later devotees like Richard “Perfect Market” Posner and Frank “Big Head” Easterbrook. Later we would see further application in something called "Law and Economics" and "Coase" which was, "You farmers should just let the railroad set your crops on fire already and get this case out of court."
Judge Minor Wisdom. So many questions. If you know your child is going to be a judge, wouldn’t you call him Major Wisdom? If you were going before the Court, would you be happy if you were only getting Minor Wisdom? If there were three kids, would it be Major, Minor, and De Minimis Wisdom? Given his influential jurisprudence advancing civil rights, he should probably get the Major upgrade. Which I will bestow. So, Judge "Major" Minor Wisdom. Done and done.
Judge Henry Friendly. We’ve all met Officer Friendly, but if Officer Friendly arrests you, would you like to appear before Judge Friendly? Often called the greatest judge you’ve never heard of, his “Friendly” name masked a razor-sharp intellect; unlike some of the other judges on this list, however, most of his intellectual firepower was reserved for the types of litigation that continues to be important and cited to this day in commercial and securities, but isn’t RAWR ABOUT WHATEVER ISSUE YOUR RELATIVES ARE FORWARDING YOU EMAILS IN ALL-CAPS ABOUT.
Justice Roger J. Traynor. I’m going to end this brief holiday edition with a shout-out to the Choo-choo Trayn himself, the Honorable Roger J. Traynor. As a justice (and Chief Justice) of the California Supreme Court, the Trayn may have had more of an impact on the law in the 20th Century than any jurist not on the Supreme Court. While a number of issues could come up, his revolutionary jurisprudence in the area of negligence and products liability opened up the modern world of tort liability ... for better or worse. True fact- every night, Plaintiffs attorneys say a little prayer to him, thanking him for letting them go off the rails on a Crazy Trayn.
II. Greyhawk, and Gygax.
As I've written before, early D&D could be kind of ... um .. goofy.
www.enworld.org
And the names in Greyhawk are no different. Let's start with the people (the notable personages) of Greyhawk. If you aren't familiar with some of them, there is a partial list here-
www.enworld.org
But briefly, you will see that the names were .... quickly decided-
Drawmij- Jim Ward
Heward: Hugh E. Burdick was Gygax's cousin./
Kas: Tim Kask
Leomund: Len Lakofka (this is a bit of a stretch!)
Leuk-O: Luke
Melf: Male elf
Nystul: From an actual magician, Brad Nystul
Otiluke: Otis + Luke (Otis was Luke's first PC)
Rary: He wanted a character that was a medium, so ... medium rary.
Serten: Tenser, re-arranged, which is Ernest.
Sustarre: Dennis Sustare
Tasha: Name of a young girl who wrote Gygax
Tenser: Ernest Gygax
Terik: Terry Kuntz
Teurney (Iron Flask of): To Ernie
Vecna: Jack Vance
Xagyg (different spellings): Gygax
Yrag: Gary Gygax
The same goes with the places that Gygax had to use to populate the map (or that were used in modules prior to that). If you don't know, Ernest, Heidi, Cindy, and Luke are his children.
Ahlissa: Elise (this was also the origin of Queen Ehlissa's Marvelous Nightengale)
Blemu Hills: Brian Blume
Ekul: Darlene Pekul
Erelhei-Cinlu: Ernest, Elise, Heidi, Cindy, and Luke
Geoff: Jeff Perren
Idee: Heidi
Keoland: Tom Keough
Perrenland: Jeff Perren
Sunndi: Cindy
Ulek: Luke
Urnst: Ernest
Womtham: Tom Wham
Before continuing, I should make sure to credit the invaluable anagram page of grodog that I referred to and verified information with while researching this.
The question you might ask is ... why? And the answer ... why not? Gygax enjoyed word play, and used the material he had. In addition, his home campaign was not "Greyhawk" as it was published- he had to come up with a bunch of names quickly to fill out the map.
When it was released, most people were completely unaware of the wordplay and origins; Perrenland and Sunndi seemed as exotic as anything else!
...but I will say that it's always hard to talk about the Grand Duchy of Geoff without tripping up a little. Sure, it has the fancy spelling and all, but it's still, you know .... Jeff. I s'pose you could say ... Ge-off, but would you?
Anyway, wanted to put this out there for people anxiously waiitng for the release of Greyhawk. Feel free to add to the list, or talk about Gygaxian wordplay or Greyhawk in the comments.
I am combining two topics today, shared by one slender thread. Names, they can be funny, amirite? So I will be doing a short dive into some lesser-known and famous judges, and then doing a bit of a deeper dive into Greyhawk, and more specifically ... why are the names so weird?
If you are looking only for your D&D-like substance, skip to part II. You won't miss anything.
I. Judges. they're just like us, except when they're dogs.
On this, a short apertif of my usual lawsplainers, I will discuss jurists- the final decisions makers. And by decision makers, I mean that they make the decision to get your case over with so they can go drinkin’, already.
But rather than be an in-depth discussion of jurisprudence, which I will save for another day, I would like to discuss my favorite judging names. See, a long time ago, when I was still learning to be a lawyer, I read these books with my fellow pre-lawyers (fun fact- the song "Baby Shark" is actually named for law student!). These books had collections of “cases” in them from which we could draw our own, wrong, conclusions.
And one judge kept popping up. Judge Learned Hand. So when a classmate asked me about Judge Learned Hand, I told them that “Learned Hand” was a name that judges used when they didn’t want to write their own names on opinion, much like Alan Smithee in Hollywood. Because who has a name like Learned Hand? I assumed my colleague knew that I was having what I colloquially referred to as “the fun,” until he then explained that concept to other students, and then to the professor after class.
We all learned a valuable lesson that day. My fellow classmate learned that Judge Learned Hand did, in fact, exist, while I learned that the joy you receive from the misery of others was the best joy that could be had; truly, why else would you go to law school? When people tell you that law school is to teach you to think like a lawyer ... that's exactly what they mean.
Anyway, some of my favorite judges and judging names, non-Supreme Court variety:
Judge Learned Hand. Yeah, he’s real, and he’s spectacular. Probably most famous today for his decision involving negligence, where he came up with the famous formula that liability results when B(urden of adequate protections) < P(robability that an incident will occur) * L(oss, or injury). This is probably the first, and most famous, attempt to “math,” law, greatly appreciated by later devotees like Richard “Perfect Market” Posner and Frank “Big Head” Easterbrook. Later we would see further application in something called "Law and Economics" and "Coase" which was, "You farmers should just let the railroad set your crops on fire already and get this case out of court."
Judge Minor Wisdom. So many questions. If you know your child is going to be a judge, wouldn’t you call him Major Wisdom? If you were going before the Court, would you be happy if you were only getting Minor Wisdom? If there were three kids, would it be Major, Minor, and De Minimis Wisdom? Given his influential jurisprudence advancing civil rights, he should probably get the Major upgrade. Which I will bestow. So, Judge "Major" Minor Wisdom. Done and done.
Judge Henry Friendly. We’ve all met Officer Friendly, but if Officer Friendly arrests you, would you like to appear before Judge Friendly? Often called the greatest judge you’ve never heard of, his “Friendly” name masked a razor-sharp intellect; unlike some of the other judges on this list, however, most of his intellectual firepower was reserved for the types of litigation that continues to be important and cited to this day in commercial and securities, but isn’t RAWR ABOUT WHATEVER ISSUE YOUR RELATIVES ARE FORWARDING YOU EMAILS IN ALL-CAPS ABOUT.
Justice Roger J. Traynor. I’m going to end this brief holiday edition with a shout-out to the Choo-choo Trayn himself, the Honorable Roger J. Traynor. As a justice (and Chief Justice) of the California Supreme Court, the Trayn may have had more of an impact on the law in the 20th Century than any jurist not on the Supreme Court. While a number of issues could come up, his revolutionary jurisprudence in the area of negligence and products liability opened up the modern world of tort liability ... for better or worse. True fact- every night, Plaintiffs attorneys say a little prayer to him, thanking him for letting them go off the rails on a Crazy Trayn.
II. Greyhawk, and Gygax.
As I've written before, early D&D could be kind of ... um .. goofy.
D&D General - The Original Reason for Spell Components: Balancing Bad Jokes
Occasionally, we see threads pop up in 5e discussing spell components, and whether the components required for a spell (especially the expensive ones) are required in order to balance a spell correctly. In order to understand the original purpose of spell components, it is helpful to understand...
www.enworld.org
And the names in Greyhawk are no different. Let's start with the people (the notable personages) of Greyhawk. If you aren't familiar with some of them, there is a partial list here-
D&D General - Greyhawk did what? A partial list of Greyhawk Personalities
After looking at the two threads involving Greyhawk, I realized that there are many people who don't realize certain things are Greyhawk; either they think it's just "general D&D," or it's something that the Realms has tried to swallow up, or something else. So I thought I'd do a short post to...
www.enworld.org
But briefly, you will see that the names were .... quickly decided-
Drawmij- Jim Ward
Heward: Hugh E. Burdick was Gygax's cousin./
Kas: Tim Kask
Leomund: Len Lakofka (this is a bit of a stretch!)
Leuk-O: Luke
Melf: Male elf
Nystul: From an actual magician, Brad Nystul
Otiluke: Otis + Luke (Otis was Luke's first PC)
Rary: He wanted a character that was a medium, so ... medium rary.
Serten: Tenser, re-arranged, which is Ernest.
Sustarre: Dennis Sustare
Tasha: Name of a young girl who wrote Gygax
Tenser: Ernest Gygax
Terik: Terry Kuntz
Teurney (Iron Flask of): To Ernie
Vecna: Jack Vance
Xagyg (different spellings): Gygax
Yrag: Gary Gygax
The same goes with the places that Gygax had to use to populate the map (or that were used in modules prior to that). If you don't know, Ernest, Heidi, Cindy, and Luke are his children.
Ahlissa: Elise (this was also the origin of Queen Ehlissa's Marvelous Nightengale)
Blemu Hills: Brian Blume
Ekul: Darlene Pekul
Erelhei-Cinlu: Ernest, Elise, Heidi, Cindy, and Luke
Geoff: Jeff Perren
Idee: Heidi
Keoland: Tom Keough
Perrenland: Jeff Perren
Sunndi: Cindy
Ulek: Luke
Urnst: Ernest
Womtham: Tom Wham
Before continuing, I should make sure to credit the invaluable anagram page of grodog that I referred to and verified information with while researching this.
The question you might ask is ... why? And the answer ... why not? Gygax enjoyed word play, and used the material he had. In addition, his home campaign was not "Greyhawk" as it was published- he had to come up with a bunch of names quickly to fill out the map.
When it was released, most people were completely unaware of the wordplay and origins; Perrenland and Sunndi seemed as exotic as anything else!
...but I will say that it's always hard to talk about the Grand Duchy of Geoff without tripping up a little. Sure, it has the fancy spelling and all, but it's still, you know .... Jeff. I s'pose you could say ... Ge-off, but would you?
Anyway, wanted to put this out there for people anxiously waiitng for the release of Greyhawk. Feel free to add to the list, or talk about Gygaxian wordplay or Greyhawk in the comments.
