Dominic Flandry converses with Broch/Second Mate Tryntaf the Tall, Vach unknown. David Falkayn had conversed with Captain Tryntaf Fangryf-Tamer, Vach also unknown. As on Earth, a personal name alone is insufficient to identify an individual. Nicknames vary. They can describe an individual's physical characteristics, psychological disposition or something notable that he has done.
The greenskin cinc on Starkad is Fodaich/Commandant Runei. When Lannawar Belgis says that he had transferred to the Bedh-Ivrich whose skipper was Runei the Wanderer, Flandry asks whether that was the same Runei. Lannawar believes so. Flandry had known the personal name but maybe not the nickname.
Yqan/CPO Lannawar Belgis has a personal name and a surname with no nickname or Vach.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
A name like "Tryntaf Fangryf-Tamer" made me wonder if that Merseian was an enthusiast for hunting with birdlike flying raptors. Analogous to humans who hunt with hawks.
And in "Amazement of the World" Anderson mentions Emperor Frederick II's treatise on hawk hunting.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Similar nickname systems were used in many earlier cultures -- note that the modern English-speaking system whereby names are just arbitrary noises is rather uncommon.
A lot of Viking chiefs had names like "Blood-Axe" or "Steel Fist"; Proto-Germanic names translate as things like "Kin-Protector" or "Bold Friend".
Many Roman 'cognomen' (the last of the 'tria nomina')started out as nicknames attached to individuals and then became hereditary.
"Brutus" means "animalistic stupidity", for example. "Caesar" originally meant "hairy", probably. "Cicero" meant "wart-face".
My father's mother's family got "Uphill" as a surname because their farm was up-hill from the parish church...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And of course there's Harald III of Norway, better known as Harald Hardrede, meaning one who made hard or stern rulings/decisions.
And I think a name like "Alfred" means "Elf friend."
"Caesar" might have started as a joke. That branch of the gens Julia seems to have gotten the reputation of being characterized as the males being bald. Peasant Roman humor!
My own surname of "Brooks" still has the obvious meaning of "small streams."
Merry Christmas! Sean
Merry Christmas to all, btw.
English names mostly started out meaning something in Hebrew or Greek or Latin.
My own surname is a variant of Berg as in German for hill.
So some ancestor of mine lived on top of or on the other side of some hill.
BTW I do have a Peter Baerg as an ancestor of mine, so almost the same name as the protagonist of "The Problem of Pain"
Merry Saturnalia to All ;)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Jim!
Mr. Stirling: Merry Christmas to you!
Jim: That "a" in "Baerg" made me miss the resemblance of "Baerg" to "Berg" in "The Problem of Pain."
Yes, many given names and surnames do have meanings when investigated.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Jim: yeah, but the English people who took up names of Hebrew or Greek (or Graecized Hebrew) or French/Latin origin generally didn't -know- the meanings and still don't.
They just took them up because the clergy approved, or they were fashionable among the upper classes.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I am sure what you said was or is true of many people. But people who read or listened to the Bible read aloud would know that many of the names they used came from the patriarchs, apostles, evangelists, and saints of the Scriptures.
I do agree with what you said about names of French/Latin/Greek origins.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Sean: the English generally shed their ancestral English names in the two centuries following the Norman conquest.
At that date, literacy rates were very low, particularly among the lowly. The closest most people got to the Bible was illustrated scenes painted on Church walls.
And even those who knew the names were derived (often via French or Italian) from Biblical persons didn't know what the names originally -meant-.
Eg., "Jeremey" derives from a Hebrew name -- Yirmeyah, roughly (working from memory), meaning "Exalted by God".
Some of the people who adopted the name may have known it as Biblical (probably from something close to Jeremiah) but they wouldn't have known what the Hebrew original was or what it meant.
It was just a sound to them.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, most of what illiterate English people knew of the Bible came from images and paintings in their churches. But I have also read of parish priests who used the Bible for their homilies.
Yes, I agree that it was only the educated, clergy or laity, who would know more about the meaning and origins of Biblical names. And I knew at once that the "Jeremey" seen in your TO TURN THE TIDE was Biblical, close to "Jeremias."
Happy New Year! Sean
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