Dragaera

Patronymics vs. family names

Mark A Mandel mam at theworld.com
Fri Sep 6 18:09:49 PDT 2002

On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Steve Simmons wrote:

#A question for Steve B, or for those who know Hungarian, er, Fenarian
#better...
#
#Cawti has a patronymic name which we never learn.  Vlad seems to think
#that all Fenarians (or maybe all easterners?) have patronymics.  But
#Vlad himself is called Vlad Taltos.  And his grandfather is called Taltos
#as well (by Kelly).  So either Taltos is a family name, or both Vlads
#father and great-grandfather were named Taltos.  Or maybe I just don't
#understand patronymics at all.

I address this question in Cracks and Shards, at
   http://world.std.com/~mam/Cracks-and-Shards/names.html#surnames

	====

Surnames

Easterners typically have surnames, which Brust refers to as
patronymics, i.e., "names derived from the father". In our world the
term is usually used for names with the (original) literal meaning
"son/daughter of So-and-so [the father]", such as Ibn <Saud>,
Ben-<Gurion>, <Ivan>ova, <Finnbog>adottir, Mac<Arthur>, and <John>son.
At least for Fenarians, it is evidently a surname handed down from
father to offspring: Noish-pa, Vlad Taltos's paternal grandfather
[Tlt7-8,Phx36], is also "Taltos" [Tek208]. We don't know his birth name;
"Noish-pa" is a nickname roughly equivalent to "Grampa", somewhat
modified from Hungarian "nagy-pa".

	[stuff about specific characters omitted here[

	====

Now, this was partly a way of avoiding saying that Steve misunderstood
the term "patronymic". He may well have known exactly what he was doing,
and redefining it in a way still consistent with the meaning of its
parts. Similarly to something I say in another context, when dealing
with an author this good, we owe him the courtesy of preferring to
believe that if it's apparently wrong, we should try harder to figure
out how he meant it.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   http://world.std.com/~mam/Cracks-and-Shards/
   a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website