Origins

Superheroes have "origin stories," not only how they got their powers but how they got their names:

in the first Superman film, Lois Lane says, "What a super man! Superman!" and this becomes a Daily Planet headline;

the Buddha, asked if he was a god, replied, "No. I am awakened (buddha)."

In The Dog And The Wolf, Poul and Karen Anderson present a fictional account of the origins of two place names. Building a settlement beside a river confluence, Gratillonius' men call it "Confluentes" which becomes "Kemper" in Breton and "Quimper" in French. The senator's daughter extends this to "Confluentes Cornuales," meaning "Dogwood Confluence." This gives the area its current name of "Cornouaille."

And one of the chief organizers of the settlement, Corentinus, will become its first bishop, then St Corentin whose Cathedral stands in Quimper. Thus, Gratillonius' period is succeeded centuries later by ours, then Poul Anderson's fiction take us from the twentieth century into the further future, sometimes referring back to the earlier history of France.