Pony Names · 3:28pm Jul 20th, 2014
Names are important. In this essay I discuss Pony names, and the logic with which they are bestowed.
A Pony's earliest name would is something given at birth by his parents, often added to a parental or family name, and often following a family tradition. This birth name might well derive either from the little foal's appearance or some external aspect of his or her background. For instance "Snowflake" for the Pony now known as Bulk Biceps, who would have been named that because he's very white-coated and would then have been very small.
Most full names follow a noun and adjective form in which the family name is a noun and the personal name is either an adjective or a modifying noun or verb (essentially being used as an adjective). A good example of this is "Apple Bloom" which is noun / (modifying noun or verb). When there are multiple members of the family whose name are given the family name is usually obvious (Apple Bloom is an Apple); otherwise it is usually the more common of the two words.
According to Chengar Qordath the old Pegasus Clans in particular have a tendency to use verbs or verb-based nouns ("Kicker," "Doo", "Charger" etc. as family names. This makes a lot of sense given the active and militaristic nature of traditional Pegasus culture.
Fluttershy's family name in my fanon, "Wind," is a noun but describes something active, and ultimately derives from her matrilineal ancestor, Wind Whistler of Paradise Estate. Her mother Sweetwing probably named her "Fluttershy" because Sweetwing was obsessed with the legend of the Flutter Ponies. Fluttershy kept the name into adulthood because she felt it suited her personality. Given Fluttershy's awesome power levels in my fanon (mind control and a developing ability to partially-shapeshift to adapt to her needs), this now counts as a "Fluffy the Terrible" sort of situation.
We don't know very much about Rainbow Dash's family names, either in canon or in my fanon. "Dash" follows the rules for a Pegasus family name; her father is shown as having a rainbow mane and hence may have had something polychromal as a personal name, or "Rainbow" as a family name, in which case her name would have been a matrilineal composite with "Rainbow" both describing her mane and honoring her father.
As the Pony becomes older her or she might be given or choose a new name. It seems improbable that "Scootaloo" was the birth name of that Pegasus, though it might have been a foal-name based on the activity levels displayed by Pound Cake.
Earth Pony families seem to be matrilineal and matrilocal, with the husband sometimes adopting the wife's family name and in any case being counted as belonging to the maternal family. Carrot Cake and Cup Cake were probably not both "Cakes" until they were married, and since there is a "Carrot" family in town it seems likely that his pre-marital name was "[something else] Carrot." It is probable that he changed his name because he loved his bride very dearly.
A very common sort of Earth Pony name structure is the "family product / personal variety" structure. The Apples provide some clear examples of this, with such individuals as "Macintosh" and "Red Gala." The Pies have a modified version of this, in that they are primarily rock farmers but seem to have baking / cooking as a famiy sub-specialties -- they tend to pick personal names based on varieties of rocks (a tendency augmented by their marriage into the Quartzes, who have been doing this since they were a branch of the royal dynasty of the Crystal Empire -- but then, the Quartzes were originally unicorns).
The Apples and Pies are both traditionalists in this regard. The children always take the family name of the mothers, with the fathers usually keeping their own name. A husband may be honored by having his name added to a child's, thus Jasper Quartz is honored by having his eldest daughter named Cloudy Quartz Pie, though this is further justified by the fact that "cloudy quartz" is a variety of quartz and hence this works as a variety-name.
Unicorns seem to trace both matrilineages and patrilineages, with the older and nobler custom being patrilineal and a more recent (post-Harmony) matrilineal tendency having been instituted (probably under Celestia's influence and for her own benefit).
Twilight Sparkle is the daughter of Twilight Velvet and Night Light. The family name here is the matrilineal"Twilight" with the patrilineal contribution being a verb-based noun referencing the concept of "light." In her case she is probably carrying her birth name into adulthood, since as a little foal she might have been conceived of as a little "sparkle" of light.
Her brother Shining Armor is almost certainly not carrying his birth or foal name, which was probably something like "Twilight Shining." Instead, what probably happened in his case is that he got a Mark Name.
A Mark Name would be a new name assumed on the revelation of a Mark and Talent which strongly suggest it. In the case of Shining Armor, this talent was his immensely-strong force fields, which act as "armor" to protect himself and others. His full name might have been something like Twilight Shining Armor, but he tends not to use the "Twilight" part of it any more, especially since he and his sister started tending to refer to one another by the diminutives "Shiny" and "Twilie."
In Rarity's case a lot of fanon tends to assume that her family name is "Bell/Belle" with the former spelling being used for males and the latter for females. This makes a lot of sense and my charts have it as being a patrilineal name (her father was Magnum Bell) with the matrilineal name being "Sweetie" (hence Sweetie Belle's name is a deliberate composite of the two lineages). This in turn implies that the patrilineal name is a particularly old and honorable one. (In my fanon, the Belles were major gentry during the Time of Thrones and kin to the Twilights and Lulamoons, though their descendants are unaware of the connection).
With "Rarity" and "Sweetie" the family is following a virtue-name pattern. This is not uncommon among Ponies because parents love their children and like to think of them as embodying positive traits. In both cases these may have been birth-names which the Ponies in question liked enough to keep into adulthood (in Rarity's case) and early adolescence (in Sweetie's case) -- my Twelfth Equestriad Interview shows that Sweetie keeps her name into her adult career as a singer.
The general rule seems to be that Ponies can acquire a lot of names (or nicknames) and then pick which ones they want to keep: in the case of Mark-Names they have probably invented the names themsevles.
There are also definite signs of earlier linguistic influences on Equestrian. If we render Equestrian as English, consider "Pinkamena Diane Pie" (Pinkie's full name). "Pinkamena" is Latinate meaning "unique" and "Diane" Greek for "shining one" (here my fanon identifies the namer as her grandmother Goldie Pie in this chapter of Pinkie Sense and Sensibility. "Pie," the family name, is English. PInkie has been named "the unique shining one," appropriate enough for a Messiah figure.
Applejack's full name (derived from Alex Warlorn's fanon) is "Abigail Jacqueline Apple" -- she and her brother call each other "Jackie" and "Mackie" as diminuitives. "Abigail" is derived from Hebrew and "Jacqueline" from French. Again, the family name "Apple" is English.
Obviously, these other languages are no more Franco-Italian or Greek than Equestrian is English. But they fulfill similar cultural roles. In my fanon, the Greek and Latin sounding names in particular come from the Crystal Empire, which in turn transmitted them from earlier ages. The French and Spanish sounding ones come from nations of the Old Worlds, across the Stormy Seas to the east, specifically Prance and Caballero. The Hebrew names are of Old Onagerish origin.
To go into these details would be a whole other essay, on linguistics. The important point is that Equestria is culturally open to using name-elements from foreign languages -- if it's good enough for the traditionalist Apples, it's probably good enough for anypony!
But then, Equestria is a highly-flexible and tolerant civilization.
My headcanon is that Golden Harvest and Carrot Cake are brother and sister.
Going by fan names, "Carrot" was their family name, and pre-marriage the brother and sister were Carrot Top and Carrot (something else).
If we go with 'official' names, they might have been "Golden Harvest" and "Carrot Harvest."
If we accept a matrilineal society--at least among Earth Ponies--Cake is probably Cup's last name, and Carrot took it when he married her.
A matrilineal society also provides a nice explanation for why he moved off the farm when he married her, since we'd expect land to be passed down through the female line.
And I am going to link this blog when I do a pony name worldbuilding thread. After all, it's better to have multiple viewpoints to pick from than just one.
My major departure from your theory is that rather than having family name, I think that ponies have more of a clan symbol-- the name of a pony doesn't have to have the specific word in it, but it would relate to it somehow.
So, for example, the Apples symbol is obviously Apples. Macintosh isn't Macintosh Apple, he's just Macintosh-- his name relates to his clan symbol and he'd formally be "Macintosh, of the Apple clan."
In Twilight's case, her clan is the Lights. "Shining" and "Sparkle" would both tie them into the clan symbol even without using the specific word. My personal headcanon is that both of her parents were actually Lights-- as a very old and noble clan, the family tends to emphasize any Light blood, and also encourage cousin marriages to keep titles and estates tied to the clan. This brings up the idea that Flash Sentry might also be a Light, though distant since he's a pegasus rather than a unicorn, and that her family could pressure Twilight to make an acceptable match there, regardless of how she feels.
.אביגייל That's how you say Abigail in Hebrew. Pronounced Avi-ga-eel.
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That's closer to how I think it "actually" works in Equestrian, with the "family name" being a translation of the "clan concept," and this is what unites the seemingly-disparate Pegasus, Unicorn and Earth Pony systems. I'm willing to accept the symbol translation into family name for the sake of simplicity in my family trees and lists, while being aware that it's actually an approximation.
This makes sense, and also ...
I like the idea that aristocratic unicorn culture is more into arranged marriages than most Equestrian cultures, but I see this as more a thing of the past than the present. I have a couple of specific reasons for this.
The first is that, historically on Earth, the increase in personal wealth and potential sources of income that derives from even a Commercial Revolution (let alone an Industrial Revolution, tends to increase individual automomy compared to families to the point that it becomes extremely difficult to force anyone into arranged marriages.
The way this development works is seen clearly in Western Europe from the 15th through 18th centuries -- at the start of this period, arranged marriages among the nobility and gentry were the norm, and even allowing the potential couple the right of refusal of suitors is considered perhaps dangerous liberality. By the end of this period, the situation has reversed: the parental role has become to arrange meetings between their offspring and suitable matches in the hope that one of them will meet with the offspring's approval, and the only right remaining to the parents is to refuse an unsuitable choice by their offspring -- and this right entirely vanishes at age 21 (attainment of "majority")!
What happened? In the 15th century, a young aristocrat or gentleperson was very much dependent upon their families for simple survival. Getting any suitable position required active political promotion from one's family, and consequently the cost of disobedience to the head of one's family could easily be life-ruining, simply by that head no longer actively supporting one's career. In the next 300 years, the immense growth of productivity due to trans-oceanic trade and nascent industrialism made it increasingly easy for well-educated young aristocrats and gentlefolk to support themselves without reference to their families or family-mediated politics (though of course they did better with active support).
Not coincidentally, an ideology arose (at around the same time in America, Britain and France, though for slightly different reasons in each case) that held that the basis of marriage should be companionate and romantic love. The old arranged marriages were decried as producing loveless matches, couples who would quickly take to adultery, hopefully first producing legitimate heirs! This of course meant rampant immorality at the highest levels of society.
Instead, the reformers argued, young gentlemen and ladies should have the chance to know one another before marriage, and marry on the basis of not only political and economic strategy, but also mutual emotional and intellectual compatibility. This, they said, would produce love-matches whose members would resist temptation and enjoy long, happy and reproductively-successful marriages.
The heralds of this new attitude were the romantic novelists of the 18th through early 19th century. The new social structure they invented is what we call "Victorian" (but which most persons not social historians usually misunderstand, largely because it was famously deconstructed by the Edwardians and the Bright Young Things of the 1920's and 1930's).
Technologically, Equestria appears to be at roughly the mid to late 19th century, and culturally similar to that of the late 19th to early 20th century. For this reason, I would imagine the great age of arranged marriage, even in the aristocracy, would be past or in the process of passing. Though I do think that among the highest Unicorn families, especially the old royal houses, would be the last holdouts.
As for Twilight Sparkle, the power of her family to force her to marry anypony against her will would be extraordinarily limited: the only hold they would have over her would be her own sense of honor and love for her parents. Her livelihood ceased to be based on parental approval the day she won her Cutie Mark, and her status exceeded that of her parents' the moment she defeated Nightmare Moon. Now, as a Princess, there are only two or three Ponies in all Equestria who could legitimately command her to do anything as intimate as choosing a husband -- and I don't read any of them as being interested in making her marry against her will.
For that matter, Equestria is very clearly a "liberal" society in the 19th century meaning of the word -- despite the fact that it is a thaumocracy (in Ashen Smirk's terms), even its absolute rulers choose to limit their actions under the laws they have decreed. Anyone not Celestia is bound by laws others have decreed (or otherwise passed -- I don't think Celestia is the sole fount of legislation). This has long since ceased to be a feudal aristocracy in which one needs support from one's clan to survive in a world lawless once one gets beyond town or castle walls.
Given this, I would be very surprised if even normal unicorn aristocrats and gentleponies can be easily forced into marriages by their families. Consent would be an absolute requirement, and the modern Equestrian economy flexible enough that young Ponies who sufficiently disapproved of their parents' choices could simply leave home and set up their lives on their own. This, please note, was the development which doomed arranged marriages in our world.
There's a canon point which also supports the notion that arranged marriages are now mostly a thing of the past. When we meet Rarity, her plan is to win Blueblood's love so he will marry her. This plan is literally impossible if upper-class marriages are arranged, since Blueblood's own sentiments would in that case not compensate for Rarity's lack of aristocratic status. And Rarity has spent her life studying the aristocracy, because she wants to rise to become one.
In a world whose marriage system were like that of Western Europe in the 15th-17th century, Rarity would instead be scheming to become Blueblood's favored mistress, because she would know that for somepony of her relatively low status, marriage to a Prince would be unthinkable. (*). In a world whose marriage system were like that of Western Europe in the 18th through early 20th century, however, her goal of winning not merely love but marriage would be attainable.
Hence, marriage is at least not necessarily arranged -- and, what is more, mutural love can override familial preferences.
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(*) Ironically, Rarity's ultimate status is destined to be higher than that of Prince Blueblood -- but neither of them know this at the time.
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I didn't mean to imply that I thought her family would, or could, arrange a marriage with Flash, more that it would be... encouraged. For the Canterlot upper class, I tend to see them as early 20th century wealthy, with a purely social distinction between old money and titles and new. Upper class marriages would increasingly cross these boundaries for many reasons, but marrying selfishly without regard to the family's position is a bold move.
For Twilight, a marriage to Flash would be celebrated, Shining would be expected to give him a promotion, estates would be left to them, etc. If Twilight wasn't interested, it's not as if her family would disown a princess, but it would be seen as a folly of youth, and become something that her older relatives harped on or used as an I-told-you-so if any problems came up in the path she chose. If she chose to marry Flash, or an upperclass pony from an old family, the older ponies in the important Canterlot families would consider her a sensible girl and a good princess.
On the other side of the coin, if she chose to marry, say, an Apple, there would be gossip implying that her reasons for doing so were probably carnal, or that she was tricked or seduced into it, and their reasons for marrying her were social climbing or mercenary. No one could stop the match, but it would be considered unwise by a certain kind of pony, and to them it would reflect badly on her and the pony she married. (Believe it or not, I've been dying to read or write a TwiJack fic dealing with some of these types of issues.)
(I also vaguely like the idea that Blueblood isn't actually an asshole, but that his family is one of those titled but secretly impoverished families, and that he was pushing away Rarity because she didn't have the money he needed to marry into for his family to stay solvent. Making unacceptable mares think he's an asshole seems kinder to him than explaining that the mare isn't rich enough for him and revealing his family's poverty.)
Basically, if Canterlot nobility is a late 19th, early 20th century type-system, arranged marriages are right out, but there are still all sorts of familial and social systems to pressure ponies into the "right" sort of matches for the family.
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Yes, I think that there would be a lot of manipulation of younger members of the gentry and aristocracy by the older members of their family, and it would be done primarily by making them feel foolish and guilty if they resisted what was seen as the "proper" path. I also agree that there's probably a strong "old money / new money" distinction, with the usual inevitable tendency in an essentially open and mobile society for the old families to sink into obscurity and be supplanted by new ones, unless the old families succeeded in producing new members of talent.
As I discussed in "Class Structure of Equestria and Background of the Mane Six", Twilight Sparkle is very clearly upper-class, and while I don't think her specific family was aristocratic, I think they were not only gentry but rather old gentry. (The distinction is a matter of holding a title, which I don't think that particular branch had before Shining and Twilight both attained them). The reason that I think they were simply gentry is that Twilight is astonished by her own elevation to royalty (an actual titled aristocrat would be pleased but not astonished by it) and that they are old gentry that they display all the classic old-gentry virtues.
Her family would logically be very concerned for her, both for their own fortunes and reputation, and for hers. She moved beyond any but their theoretical control in YOH 1490 by my count (at age 7) when she essentially became a Favorite of Princess Celestia's. The show doesn't go into this but at that point she would have found herself besieged by sudden "friends" wanting to gain status from the status she had gained by close association with Celestia. Since Twilight is highly-intelligent and inclined toward modesty, she would swiftly realize the falsity of such friendship, and this would leave her with a distrust of claims of friendship.
Over the next ten years her family would mostly want to make sure that she continued to behave in such a way as to keep Celestia's friendship, and that she did nothing to disgrace or embarrass her family. Since this was Twilight Sparkle, she amply repaid her family's hopes in this regard.
Her star has continued to rise throughout the series, and thus her family would not want her to marry at this point for the same reason that you don't sell a stock while its price is still rising. As Twilight hasn't been seriously attracted to anypony during the period covered by the series so far, there has been little danger that she would make an unsuitable love match (or do anything to embarrass her family).
In my fanon, Luna is attracted to Twilight (because she is a reincarnation of Dusk Skyshine and has many of his attractive personality traits); in canon their feelings for one another are probably at most friendship with occasional flashes of rivalry. Luna is pursuing Twilight in a very elegant and protracted fashion -- they are both immortal and Luna (unlike Twilight) is both romantically-experienced and grasps what immortality means, so she would rather take her time about it than risk frightening off her reborn True Love.
Twilight is (somewhat naively) worried of what her family would think of this situation. She is actually correct that they woudln't want her to be somepony's mistress; what she doesn't fully grasp is that their main worry here would be that Luna's sanity is questionable and they'd mostly be concerned that she might hurt Twilight or drag her down to destruction in some harebrained scheme. Assuming that Luna isn't going to do anything to harm Twilight, the fact that Luna is a Ruling Princess would more than reconcile them to Twilight becoming her mistress. If they knew that Luna actually wants to seduce Twilight into marriage, they would be ecstatic.
The other obvious problem with Twilight / Luna is that as a homosexual relationship it wouldn't produce children. Homosexuality doesn't have much stigma in Equestrian culture, but it's still a minority orientation, and still an infertile one. The usual ways that lesbian couples get around this are adoption, Morgan-marriage, insemination by a friendly stallion not in the relationship, artificial insemination or temporary sex-change magic.
What her family perhaps doesn't realize is that for Twilight and Luna, both Alicorns and having the powers of all FIVE Kinds, this is less of a problem than it seems. Even Twilight is just beginning to grasp this, and its implications regarding the possibility of actually having children with Luna.
Given Twilight's current level of power and status, her family would be unhappy with her marrying anypony who wasn't royal or upper-aristocracy. I don't know that Flash Sentry would be seen as high enough for her any more. I don't think that he would have been seen as such at the point she first met him, because she'd already Ascended and been crowned a Princess.
I've never believed that Blueblood was a complete jerk. He had absolutely no reason to love Rarity -- he'd never even met her before -- and her behavior toward him was that of a shallow gold-digger. Her personality is a lot deeper and better than that, but that is the side she was DISPLAYING toward him.
The really cruel thing for him to have done to her would have been to behave very nicely to her, bed her, and then cast her aside once he tired of her -- possibly after a single night. That would have devastated Rarity (especially my Rarity, who would have been essentially repeating the error she made in her early teens). It might have even broken her.
The truly nice thing to do would have been to be honest about his situation from the start. But I can see why Blueblood might not want to do that. It must be embarrassing for him to admit that his own social position is so shaky. And why should he admit this to somepony whom he assumes to be merely an annoying fortune hunter?
Anyway, I don't think Blueblood is all that nice. Merely that I don't think he's horribly evil. My Blueblood is a major snob, and a bit of a bully -- but not atrocious. My Luna despises him, but Luna's POV shouldn't be taken to correspond completely to objective reality -- she's a mare of strong passions, both loves and hates.
There's another alternative, which I believe is the most common one: the name initially given to a pony to his parents somehow ends up being appropriate, and no name change is needed. A pony's name might reflect her cutie mark even if it was given before the pony discovered her cutie mark. It might seem a reversal of cause and effect, but given that this is Equestria (a land saturated with magic) it's not that improbable, even without considering nominative determinism.
And yeah, this might mean that even ponies who end up marrying somehow already had matching names.
In trope terms, most pony names would be Meaningful Names.
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I can see a little of that, sure -- I even specifically used it in Pinkie Sense and Sensibility to explain why Pinkie is named something that means "the unique shining one" -- but I think it's just too cute by half if everypony benefits from this effect. When coupled with the fact that (thanks to fan names and nicknames and official names and then renames) most Ponies have more than one name anyway, the assumption that at some point in life many of them rename themselves seems inescapable.
Nicknaming is very common especially where a name is used more than once in the same family. I show how this can happen in Collateral Damage where the colt Macintosh Apple, familiarly called "Little Mac," gets renamed "Big Mac" by the filly Cheerilee. And her name is itself a nickname -- her true and full name is Blackcherry Lee Punch Berry. The fact that Mac is willing to accept this renaming is an early sign of how much he cares (as a child) for Cheerilee.
I'd love to think I can give equal eloquence that many of your commenters do, but since I'm currently suffering from con crud, I'll simply thank you again for another excellent entry and encouraging such lovely debates.
I have been working on and Off again on this very post for about two weeks, but now there is no point, because when I mean this very post I do mean the same since our ideas are 99% identical ( which should not be too shocking since you were the main influence on those Ideas.)
The only thing that I am going to add ( because it may be different) is that I refer to a pony's first name as their " milk" name like milk teeth, a name given in the expectation that once the " Mark" name is given it will be replaced if the pony so wishes it. I love the phrase " mark" name as well.
I also never visualized Shining carrying the family name as " Twilight Shining" either because only mares carry it or perhaps because males carry a masculinized variant ( the proverbial " Dusk" as in " Dusk Shining") not that I have any problems with your Idea mind, just putting it out there to maximize perspectives.
I once wrote a comment on a thread I created on this topic ( the same thread where you and I first interacted if I remember correctly) where I put forth some vague Ideas about naming ceremonies after the " Mark name" is chosen. when I find that post I will repost it to this thread.
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I like the "milk name" term -- I may start using it. "Milk name" and "Mark name" have a nice appositional ring to them!
This means that Diamond Tiara is also probably a mark name. She probably started out as "Derogatory adjective designed to keep the pony being assigned it humble" Rich and gained the new name when a diamond tiara wound up emblazoned on her flank. Also, Derpy seems to have been assigned that name.
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Yes. Stinking Rich went through his life and became a success despite the handicap of his name; he made having such a name a condition of inheritance. His son did the same, imposing this on Filithy and (she was a little filly when he died) the future Diamond.
And Derpy was born Desiree Doo. She was cast off by her Clan following her unwed pregnancy, and she assumed the name Derpy Hooves. Which proved fateful.
3129338 It's sort of like how a Forsythe P Jones insists on calling himself Jughead. It started out meaning 'idiot' but it now means 'guy with a big nose who eats a lot'; eventually, her name will lose its original malicious intent and become neutral tending towards positive.
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True.