Essays Index
Equestrian Culture series: Part 1 - Religion | Part 2 - Government and Military | Part 3 - Values and Morality | Part 4 - Names and Family | Part 5 - Language

Names and Family:
Choosing names:
In Equestria, there is no set rule for the naming of ponies, as ponies believe that the value of a name lies not in its ability to identify an individual to others, but in its meaning to oneself. As such, while parents may name their foals at birth, it is common in Equestria for ponies to change their names once they are older to something which they believe fits them better, which is what leads to so many instances of seemingly prophetic names. Friends or family of a pony who undergoes a name change usually accept the new name without question.

Name changes can take place at any time in life. Older ponies have been known to change their names to reinvent themselves, such as after a midlife crisis, and foals also sometimes change their names before even reaching adulthood, usually in the wake of discovering their cutie marks. Some parents occasionally even forego naming foals altogether, so that their foal's eventual name is entirely their own decision, but this is rare, as parents with more than one foal will quickly run into trouble with verbally differentiating between their children.

Naming conventions:
Most ponies in Equestria take their names from standard words in the Equestrian language, with the most common convention being the "adjective-verb" name. Within some families, members may have recurring words or common themes to their names, such as with "Twilight Sparkle" and her mother, "Twilight Velvet," but these are not the same as family names, and don't necessarily mean anything by themselves.

Ponies do have a concept of the first name, middle name, and last name, but Equestrian last names are not the same thing as family names either, and for ponies, it is not necessary to have all four. When a pony's full name consists of at least two separate words, that pony can be considered as having a first and last name. For example, for Rainbow Dash, "Rainbow" is her first name and "Dash" is her last name. However, it is acceptable for ponies to have full names consisting of only one word, such as "Rarity," or multiple words rendered as one word, such as "Twinkleshine."

Ponies with first and last names can also have middle names, but middle names follow different conventions. Most notably, middle names are often taken from foreign languages rather than Equestrian. These are names such as "Joe," "Sally," "Steven," and "Trixie." However, modern Equestrians consider it pretentious or gaudy to have a name more than six syllables long at most, except among the more old-fashioned and upper-class types, and so while many families do still give their foals middle names, most ponies who have them do not use them informally. Thus, most middle names are "silent."

A second type of middle name also exists in Equestria, that being middle names which are used to turn a full name into a phrase or short sentence. These are "spoken" middle names, unlike silent ones, as they do not usually break the syllable rule. Such names are often hyphenated in writing. "Well-To-Do" and "Sew-n'-Sow" are both examples of this kind of name.

Foreign names are also sometimes appropriated as first or last names, but for Heartland-born ponies with no foreign ancestry, such a thing is also seen as pretentious. Even immigrants and ponies who do have foreign ancestry often compensate for such names by incorporating equine-associated words into them. "Suri Polomare," for instance, is an obviously foreign name which has been Equestrianised in this way.

Family names:
A family name in Equestrian culture is not a surname or last name. It is just the name for the family itself. While ponies from that family may try to incorporate the family name somewhere into their own names, it's never considered absolutely necessary, and it doesn't always have to be as a last name. Looking at members of the Apple Family, "Big Macintosh" is a full name which does not include the family name anywhere, while "Applejack" incorporates the family name, but not as a last name. On the other hand, looking at the Cake Family, "Cup Cake" would be an example of the family name used as a last name at the same time.

As mentioned above, families can have naming conventions that are unrelated to their family name itself, leading to some confusion. For example, the Apple Family includes many ponies who went on to farm other things. While the Oranges and other such branches of the family started new naming themes to indicate their new professions, they are still firmly considered part of the Apple Family. Another example can be seen in Prince Blueblood's family, which has incorporated the word "blood" into their names for several generations, despite the fact that their actual family name is "Thorncrown."

Not every family has an actual family name, either because the family might have forgotten it at some point, or because they never had one. Rarity's family, for instance, has no name. However, any married couple with at least one foal (biological or otherwise) can register to be recognised as a family by the government, and start a new family name of their choosing. A family which owns property and can provably trace their ancestry back more than ten generations can even be legally recognised as a house.

Identifying:
Because pony names can theoretically be anything, and because it is possible for multiple random ponies to choose the same name, identifying oneself to others in Equestria, particularly for census purposes, requires more than just a name. Sometimes, a title (such as "princess") is enough for this, but for those with more common titles, or who have no title, further specification is needed.

Those who need to specify their exact identity can choose to do so in a number of ways. The most common is by family name (e.g. "Applejack of the Apple Family"), but one can also identify by race ("Spike the Dragon"), by place of origin or residence ("Rainbow Dash of Cloudsdale"), or by generation if the pony in question has an inherited name ("Ulysses Throatfuck III").