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Reach-folk give names with care. The custom varies cluster by cluster, trade by trade, and family by family — there is no single naming convention across the Reaches — but a few patterns recur often enough that a traveller can navigate most introductions if they know the broad shapes.
The naming-day
In most reach-traditions, a child is not formally named for the first thirty days of life. The child is called by household-pet-words — little one, small star, sprout, the family’s own private choices — and is referred to in temple records, if at all, as the new one. On the thirtieth day, the child receives their formal name in a small household rite: the naming-day.
The naming-day is a folk-tradition older than the temple’s adoption of it. It is associated, by most reach-priests, with Velisara — the god of first things — and the temple has, in most clusters, taken to performing a small blessing on the day. The blessing is brief. The temple does not pretend to give the name. The naming is the household’s.
Who chooses the name varies:
- In Quiet Reach villages, the grandmother of either side has traditional first refusal. If the grandmothers cannot agree, the parents choose
- In the Copper Ring, naming is often a contractual matter — names are recorded in family-line ledgers and follow brasswright inheritance rules. Some Copper Ring families use names by alternation (“eldest son takes father’s father’s name”) that have run for nine generations
- In Ironvale and among the Anvilbound, the child is named by the clan-elder at the household’s request. The choice is rarely refused. Anvilbound names are often two-part — given name + clan affiliation — and the clan-name is taken without alternative
- Among the Veiled-folk villages, names are typically short, often single-syllable, and are chosen for sound rather than meaning. Veiled-folk names sometimes feel ancient to outsiders; they are usually not. They are simply theirs
A child who has not been named by the thirtieth day — most commonly because the parents have not agreed, or because the household has faced a crisis in the first month — is, by old reach-custom, given a place-name instead: the child of [household] or the child born on [isle]. The place-name can be exchanged for a true name later. Some adults still carry place-names by choice. There is no shame in it.
Travel-names
Most reach-folk who travel — skyfarers, scholars, traders, priests in itinerant orders — carry a travel-name in addition to their given one. The travel-name is the name they offer to strangers, the name they sign to letters from abroad, the name port-records will know them by. The given name — the name received at the naming-day, the name the household used — is held back.
The reasons are several:
- Privacy: a given name said aloud by an enemy is, in old reach- belief, a thing that can be used against the bearer. Most adults no longer believe this literally; most adults still keep the custom
- Practicality: travel-names are often shorter, more pronounceable across regional dialects, and easier to remember. Vesh is easier than Aevarinne; many bearers of Aevarinne go as Vesh and consider this a courtesy to others
- Trade-tradition: skyfarers in particular hold their given names closely. To give a crewmate the given name is to declare them first-named — a binding-word in the trade. It is not done lightly
Most travel-names are chosen, not assigned. A young skyfarer typically chooses theirs before their second crossing. The choice is private; the new travel-name is announced to the crew; it is then used. Some choose travel-names that are simple variants of their given name (Aevarinne → Vesh); some choose entirely new ones; some choose the name of an admired captain or relative. The Wren Academy keeps a small collection of skyfarer travel-names assembled from harbour-rolls, and the most common are short, sea-themed, and old: Vesh, Marn, Sela, Korrin, Toll, Ailsa, Ren, Bryne.
A traveller’s full address, in formal correspondence, is typically:
[Travel-name] [of/from [home-isle]], e.g. Captain Vesh of the Marrowkeel, Master Velleth of Brassmarket, Mother Aelira of Pike’s Reach
The given name is not used in formal address.
Marriage and naming
When two reach-folk marry, the question of names is often discussed before the rite — and is, in many clusters, taken as a measure of how the new household will work. Practices vary:
- Single-name households: one partner takes the other’s surname or family-line; common in the Copper Ring and among older land-bound reach-families
- Hyphenated households: both partners’ names are joined; common in the Quiet Reach and among scholars
- Kept-name households: each partner keeps their own; common among skyfarers, who often have travel-names that would be awkward to combine
- Chosen-name households: a new household-name is chosen together, unrelated to either partner’s birth name; older folk-tradition, rarer now but not unknown, particularly among Veiled-folk
The temple does not require any particular practice. The temple records the marriage under whatever name-pattern the household has chosen. Most marriage rites involve a small moment in which the names to be carried forward are spoken aloud once. After that, the new household has them.
Posthumous names
The dead keep their names. This is the rule. A reach-household that has lost a member does not stop using the dead’s name in conversation; the empty chair (see Vessen of the Hearth) is set in the dead’s name; the candle on the Long Watch (see Sylth Keykeeper) is lit in the dead’s name; the funeral notice in the Crescent Market record-rolls preserves the dead’s name in full, given and travel both, often the only public document where both names appear together.
This is, in some Reach-traditions, the only time a person’s full naming becomes a public record. The dead are, in the records, more honestly named than the living.
“My given name is Aevarinne, after my mother’s mother. My travel-name is Vesh, which I chose at fourteen because it was short and would not be made fun of. My first hand has been first-named to me for eleven years. He calls me Aevarinne when we are alone in the stoneward’s cabin and the door is shut. He is the only person on the ship who does. When I die, both names will be in the funeral notice. He will be the one to hand them in.”
— Captain Vesh of the Marrowkeel, in private correspondence, 412 AU