Aztec Names

[Torco]

Very funny, Torco. Well, thanks for reminding me, but I think it's a little uncalled for to bring things up for mockery two years later. You could just have made your point politely in the thread itself.
Besides, given that they've been dead for five hundred years, I don't think they'll really care too much. And anyway, I can just go sideways into "what a Mixtec immigrant might have called themselves in Nahuatl".

Wait, this thread had been dead for two years? how did I come to read it, find it funny, and reply?
Also the joke's on us, right? Radagast pointing out that aztec peasants did have calendar names?
how the hell did I ever get to it? I'm not one to dig the depths of L&L. I think I remember someone change their name to something aztec-sounding, google the thing, had this thread show up, read it and went on by inertia. Did someone change their name to something aztec recently ?

hey, sorry, man, wouldn't have done it if I knew I was necroing. I can see how it could look like gratuitous bullying.

[Drydic]

Aztecs.

[Torco]

xD

[Radagast revived]

Sorry, I also didnt see it was a resurrected thread. Just saw an aztec and jumped on it.

[tezcatlip0ca]

Did someone change their name to something aztec recently ?

I did, but that's irrelevant.

[Drydic]

Aztecs.

[hwhatting]

On the Aztec pictures: Can we just relabel the "Otter" thread "Aztecs" and get over with this?

[R.Rusanov]

Weren't aztec names like "three-snake" and "seven-eagle" and stuff?

I think there should be a thread about names cross-culturally. In some cultures they're inherited familially, other ones they can be assigned freely, some times they are adjectives (hrabur chernorizets), sometimes nouns+adjectives (sitting bull), sometimes dithematic constructions (dromichaetes) other times weird special constructions, recently in the west the trend is "anything that sounds nice"...

The number of names also varies, most Romans had 3, most moderns have 2, some had/have only one, some as many as they want (medieval turkish warlords). Sometimes there would be one name for childhood and another afterwards... There's a tribe in the Amazon where names are dropped and taken at will...

[KathTheDragon]

The number of names also varies, most Romans had 3, most moderns have 2, some had/have only one, some as many as they want (medieval turkish warlords).

Could you elaborate on exactly what you mean by 'number of names'? I think I know, but I can't be sure.

[Drydic]

The number of names also varies, most Romans had 3, most moderns have 2, some had/have only one, some as many as they want (medieval turkish warlords).

Could you elaborate on exactly what you mean by 'number of names'? I think I know, but I can't be sure.

Gaius Julius Caesar, David Cameron, Timur (Tamerlane).

[Salmoneus]

[The 'most Romans had three names' thing is a bit of a myth. The three-name model we learn about applies only to upper class Roman adult males from the late Republic and early Empire, and even then not to all of them. Earlier, and among lower classes and among women, there were fewer names; later, there were more names, often a lot more names.]

[Drydic]

[The 'most Romans had three names' thing is a bit of a myth. The three-name model we learn about applies only to upper class Roman adult males from the late Republic and early Empire, and even then not to all of them. Earlier, and among lower classes and among women, there were fewer names; later, there were more names, often a lot more names.]

cue european aristocrats having 16 names before breakfast

[Salmoneus]

One of my favourite Roman ones is Claudius II - full name, Caesar Marcus Aurelius Valerius Claudius Pius Felix Invictus Augustus Pontifex Maximus Germanicus Maximus Gothicus Maximus. It's the repetition of 'Maximus' that does it...

(A relative of mine, Irish Catholic, has five middle names, and one of them is 'Ignatius'. She's a woman.)

[linguoboy]

There's a tribe in the Amazon where names are dropped and taken at will...

[citation needed]

[KathTheDragon]

I would be surprised if anyone (in England, at least) genuinely didn't have a middle name. I think I've met a few people like that, but virtually everyone I know well (as in, I know their forename and surname off the top of my head) has a middle name.

[Nortaneous]

It used to be common among the Scots-Irish to only take a middle initial -- see Harry S Truman.

My mother had two middle names, but rather than put one down and drop the other, she just dropped them both, and now doesn't have any. (My father's family passes down middle names like last names, so I sort of don't have one, but technically do.)

[Pthagnar]

My mother has no middle name. She is English. Mostly.

[KathTheDragon]

I've got a family tree going back about a thousand years. I'll look through there, and see what I find about middle names.

[Salmoneus]

My mother has no middle name. She is English. Mostly.

My father has no middle name. He too is English. Joke's always been that when he was growing up they couldn't afford middle names. Don't think my aunt or grandfather on that side had any either - my grandmother did, though. Recalling what I can from when I last saw the family tree for that side, middle names weren't that common for the men, except that iirc some passed down maternal maiden names as middle names for a while.

[----]

There's a tribe in the Amazon where names are dropped and taken at will...

This was traditionally the case in Myanmar, people would change their names if they went through life-changing events and things like that. Of course, it doesn't happen so often anymore because of Western influence and whatnot.

[Radagast revived]

One Myanmarese acquaintance told me about a very interesting an extreme case of gendered sound symbolism in Myanmarese names. We are used to some of that with A being female etc. but here it apparently influenced all of the vowels in the name. My friend had only the vowel i in both name and family name.

[Ser]

And what are the gender sound symbolisms? for women? and...?

[Radagast revived]

I dont know/remember! But I wish I did.