What does YOUR Name Mean?

[elorran]

Stone Honest Freeman Steadfast

Or if you prefer poetic license, Immovable stone of truth and freedom.

[Zorg56]

Unharmed stick.

[RedDwarfIV]

Seizing born of fire wreath.

So complete nonsense then.

[Swindle1984]

Wealthy, courageous king
Warrior prince
Infamous warrior

So, all together, I suppose my name would mean "wealthy, brave, and infamous warrior-king".

If the Treaty of Versailles hadn't banned titles of nobility to Germans, I would be entitled to add "of wrath" or "wrathful" after my name. We, uh, earned that name in the Middle Ages when an ancestor earned the position of baron by going berserk on the French and singlehandedly wrecking a dozen men and driving off the French army. Centuries later, the then-current baron's second and third sons decided to make their way to America and make their fortune there, and this is the line I'm descended from.

As far as the surname and surname/title, there are multiples towns/regions named after us across Europe and North America. Usually because we made an impression on the locals, via making an impression on someone's skull with a mace. I'm literally the first male in 300 years not to serve in the military, and we've fought in every American war up to the Gulf War (family members were active service members at the time, but never saw combat), so my name is rather fitting, all things considered.

[entity2636]

Seeing that this is your first post, welcome to the forum, Swindle.

That is quite an impressive history and indeed something to be proud of, if you can trace your ancestry all the way back to the Middle Ages. I can't trace mine beyond my great grandparents and it's nothing too glamorous, they were what we would call today average people.

As far as the point of the thread - the Loroi would certainly be impressed, but would point out, that you have some BIG shoes to fill and you're not doing too good of a job

[Swindle1984]

I can trace my ancestry back for 700 years (one branch I can only go back ~300 years), and for nearly every one of those ancestors I have dates of birth, marriage, and death, profession, place of residence, etc. We kept very good records, mostly written into various iterations of the family Bible, although we did have to look up official records for a few we didn't have much detail for.

We have an English primer that was used to homeschool multiple generations of the family. It's old enough that among the random bookmarks inserted between the pages (including locks of hair, pressed flowers, newspaper clippings, etc.) is a Confederate $20 bill, hand signed by the treasurer.

As for living up to the name... I never joined the military, but I would think a career in law enforcement would be close enough to satisfy.

[Krulle]

Indeed, welcome Swindle.

We don't have extensive records, but sufficient to show a lineage to day-labourers around 1650, when our family took its name we still carry today.
The exact date is not that clear, since we were day-labourers, and as such likely illiterate.
Records just show when and where payments were made, and those came naturally from different farms/estates, and the records belong to those farms/estates.
It is already uncommon to be able to trace the family name back to a low society rank like that, and that far backwards.

My mother's family name we tracked back to the eviction of the Huguenots from La Hague during the Thrity Years' War (and a record of the city recording the arrival in Aachen/Aix-la-Chapelle of our particular ancestor with his thirteen sons (daughters were not recorded, in none of the records of the Huguenot families which arrived in Aachen)). The Family names all derived from La Hague: "Delahaye", "Lahaye", "Lahay", "Lahey", ...; different sons took different spelling forms. Still plenty of those names in Aachen.

"La Hague" should not to be mistaken for "The Hague" (French: "La Haye"), which is a town in The Netherlands. La Hague is a region in northern France (Normandie), the village itself may have been unnamed (Oral family history says the village's name was "La Hague", but so far I found no record of such a village having existed), but was destroyed during that Thirty Years' War, which resulted in the expulsion of the Huguenots from that region.

[Errhile]

Well, let me join the fun here...

First name, essentially: gift of God (originally Hebrew, but well-established in Christina tradition)
Second name: one to create glory / fame (Slavic)
Family name: of the cherry tree settlement (Adjective form, if interpreted literally, though historically this form used to indicate noble family's seat of power. Doesn't precise whether it was village, town or city... Slavic again, and hugely popular around here).

Which would translate into Loroi as "God-given bringer of glory of the cherry tree village". I guess would be considered passable by the Loroi, though the direct reference to a deity in the very beginning of one's name might raise a few eyebrows.
I guess on the second look the Loroi would say that such a name means my family put quite a lot of hope in me, and the wonder how do I plan to live up to it...

[SVlad]

My name literally means "Owner of the world". And both my first name and middle name are the same as our fabulous President. Therefore, everyone I've met in the last 19 years considers their duty to call me Mr. President. And everyone thought they'd come up with a new smart joke.

[Errhile]

By "middle name" do you mean otchestvo?

I guess Loroi would understand the concept of patronymic (or rather, in their case, matronymic) - as a part of one's name - pretty well, even if they do not seem to practise it themselves. Nb. to my knowledge, patronymic and matronymic surnames are pretty popular in Scandinavia, and basically the way things are in Iceland.

I'm not sure they would see translating one necessary...

[Arioch]

My name literally means "Owner of the world". And both my first name and middle name are the same as our fabulous President. Therefore, everyone I've met in the last 19 years considers their duty to call me Mr. President. And everyone thought they'd come up with a new smart joke.

Outside your country we're more likely to call you "Mr. Impaler." As if you hadn't heard that joke either.

[SVlad]

Actually Vlad is different name and not an abbreviation. I'm just too lazy to type a whole name, when register.

[Swindle1984]

Since we're on the subject of names, I found something curious: despite being pretty famous in Nordic and Germanic folklore, and once having been a very popular girl's name, Gunnhilda (Gonnhildr, Gunhildr, and various other variations) no longer appears to exist as a name. According to statistics on how popular a given name is, they couldn't find a single instance of anyone currently alive having that name.

I guess I can fix that if I ever have a daughter; it is a pretty cool name. One I suspect the Loroi would find pleasing.

[Krulle]

There are more names that disappeared completely, or near-completely.
Zacharias at least survived pretty well in the US, in its abbreviated form "Zach".

[Errhile]

Well, fashion means a lot in terms of given names. Some survive well, others disappear - sometimes to resurface years later. In modern times, popular culture does influence such popularity a lot.

Actually Vlad is different name and not an abbreviation. I'm just too lazy to type a whole name, when register.

Yup, Vlad =/= Vladimir (a tip: if one is on very good terms with a Vladimir, one may be permitted to call him Volodya).

[entity2636]

Yup, Vlad =/= Vladimir (a tip: if one is on very good terms with a Vladimir, one may be permitted to call him Volodya).

..or Vova for very close friends or among children.

Indeed, in Russian almost every given name has at least one, often numerous "shortened" or "friendly" forms, for example, Natalja becomes Natasha, Tatyana => Tanya, Svetlana => Sveta, Dmitri becomes Dima, Anatoly => Tolik, Konstantin => Kostya and so on.

[Zarya]

Check, Sasha is short for Alexander or Alexandra.
Had a ‘wait, what?’ moment upon first hearing that.

(Edit: I imagine this could be whispered in Alex’s ear by Beryl in the Russian translation of the comic)

[DCR]

Of the Danish countries / God is my judge
Strong protector
Reckless warrior (kindly) / will charge hell with a bucket of water / too stupid to be scared (unkindly)

[SVlad]

Check, Sasha is short for Alexander or Alexandra.
Had a ‘wait, what?’ moment upon first hearing that.

Had same feeling when learnt that Dick = Richard and Bill = William.

I imagine this could be whispered in Alex’s ear by Beryl in the Russian translation of the comic

It is very unlikely because Beryl has no way to know alternate forms of Alex's name.

I find very hilarious that Beryl's name sounds like Eilis that pronounced like Alice name. So she is technically Alice.

[Hālian]

Check, Sasha is short for Alexander or Alexandra.
Had a ‘wait, what?’ moment upon first hearing that.

Had same feeling when learnt that Dick = Richard and Bill = William.

Peggy = Margaret.

I imagine this could be whispered in Alex’s ear by Beryl in the Russian translation of the comic

It is very unlikely because Beryl has no way to know alternate forms of Alex's name.

I find very hilarious that Beryl's name sounds like Eilis that pronounced like Alice name. So she is technically Alice.

Or it could be mistaken for the surname Ellis.