Abi Scott (keaalu) wrote,
Abi Scott
keaalu

Laima naming conventions

(Posting this because I'm sure I'll end up losing it if I don't.)

I've been doing a little work on how the laima species functions, socially, and realised that I hadn't really thought about how their naming system works - I was just giving them first names and nothing else. This caused me 2 problems:

Firstly, for a society with three genders, you can't easily use Mr and Mrs. Mr and Mrs and... Mrs? No, that's not going to work.

Secondly, for a society that puts such a heavy emphasis on an individual's social standing and political importance, it would be strange for them to NOT have any system of indicating whose family you're part of, particularly if it's an important family.

So! I finally sat down and worked out how it should be structured.

Basic structure:
First name (capitalised), prefix’ (not capitalised), family name (capitalised)
The prefix is the determiner of whether an individual is married or not.

For unmarried laima:
Name su’MName - unmarried medusi (this is relatively unusual) - e.g., Pabishka su’Ventni
Name a’Name - unmarried spur or fessine - e.g., Valdis a’Verdi, Liega a’Salvon

For married laima:
Name si’MName - married medusi, head of family. - e.g., Pabishka si’Ventni
(si and su are intentionally similar. Most medusi like you to THINK they’re married and accumulating a big harem, even if they aren't, yet)
Name si’MName-name - married spur, takes the medusi’s family name and hyphenates it in front of his own - e.g., Valdis si’Ventni-verdi
Name ro’MName - married fessine, just takes the medusi’s family name. - e.g., Liega ro’Ventni

Notes
No medusi have hyphenated names; it is considered to lessen their social standing to take the spur’s family name in addition to her own.
Most medusi tend to be referred to as "Madame Firstname", e.g. Madame Pabishka; they only use "Madame si’Surname" in official documentation.
All children take the medusi’s surname.
Tags: laima, worldbuilding
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