So, I've been thinking recently, and it occurred to me that most stories use Nyx Sparkle as Nyx's full name. At first it sounds perfectly reasonable, but when you begin to think about it, you start to notice some problems.

First of all, Twilight's mother. Officially, as well as in pretty much every single story I've read, her name is Twilight Velvet. Not "Velvet Sparkle" or even "Sparkle Velvet," Twilight Velvet. Second, a lot of stories seem to make the assumption that the rest of Twilight's female ancestors on her mother's side were called "Twilight Something-Or-Other," as is Twilight is the family name and the last name is the "personal" name (kind of like Chinese names). Admittedly, most people don't use their family names as their given names, but there are people who do so.

Going by this, wouldn't Nyx's full name be Twilight Nyx?

Of course, this is all fan-speculation, not anything that any official source has confirmed or denied. In addition, I'd like to stress that I have no problem with Nyx Sparkle as Nyx's full name. it simply occurred to me that Twilight Nyx is a more logical choice.

3580274 , Then you run into a whole new problem on Twilight Sparkle's father's side of the family: Night Light.

Personally, I'm all for Nyx being short for "Nightmare Yggdrasil Xerophyte".

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The only other families we know are Twilight's, Rarity's, the Cakes, the Pies, the Rich and the Apples.

Twilight has her mom, but also her dad Night Light and her brother Shining Armour.

Rarity's parents are named Hondo Flanks and Cookie Crumbles.

The Cakes seem to use Cake as a second name.

As it happens, Pinkie Pie had a grannie Pinkie and a grannie Pie. While her three sisters are all named something-Pie, her parents are Cloudy Quartz and Igneous Rock.

Named, we have Stinking Rich being the father to Filthy Rich, and him having Diamond Tiara for a daughter.

The Apples have no discernible rule, using "Apple" as either first name, second name or none at all, like Annie Smith, Big Macintosh, Babs Seed and Morose Orange.

In conclusion, I say that pony names are completely up to the parents. Family names as we use them do not exist beyond "theme", as seen with the Cakes, the Rich and the Apple.

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But that isn't even half as cool as what you find out what Nyx is in Greek mythology I mean, whoa...that is just...

I have been personally interpiting her full name as Nyx Sparkle, mainly because I feel like Sparkle is a family name (Matirarchial society being what it is, it is possible for the female's sure names to be used) and two, I think Nyx is the type of girl who wants to be as close to Twilight as possible. So she would take her mother's name as her own.

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3580954 Okay, that is awesome. And, given that the Goddess Nyx gave birth to Hemera (Day) and the Hesperides (night), Twilight Nyx actually makes a lot of sense (What comes between day and night?)

But if we went totally Greek Geek on her, her name would be something like Nyx Twilight Nightmare Nemesis Thanatos Eris Hypnos Aether Hemera Charon Luna Sparkle.

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At wich point, after Nyx gives her full name, she will then blush cutely and say "But you can call me, Nyx"

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"Twilight was reading old Myth books when she named you, wasn't she?"

3581493 I just couldn't choose just one.

You think that's bad? She wanted to name me Spike Draco Smaug Charizard Vermithrax Perjorative Shenron Norbert Toothless Ghidorah Jabberwock Lockheed Sparkle.

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New Rule. Twilight is not Allowed to Name Anything Ever again. Ever.

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Insisting on forcing human naming conventions on them is a lack of creativity in my opinion. It is made quite clear through the show that they don't really have last names, their names are often two parts, but just as often one. I think it's clear that they do tend to keep family themes. What makes it interesting is thinking about how the parents name their children to so often accurately match their talent later on.

I like to go with the themes myself. For example: I have my own main OC, Midnight Star who ends up marrying a Pegasus named Wind Blade and they have three children; Star Bright, Sentinel Star, and Dawn Wind. Each follows a theme with one of their parents.

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What's funny is I had used the name Nyxia for a character long before I even got into MLP, let alone read Past Sins. I had found the name in Greek mythology as well.

I often use names from greek mythology if I want to add symbolism. My most recent story has a villain named Achlys. In greek mythology she was the spirit of the death-mist, and the personification of sadness and misery. In the same story, Celestia uses a spear and a shield she's named Arete and Soter respectively, and Luna uses two crescent swords with the blades curving in opposite directions called Lyssa and Limos... all are names from Greek mythology.

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Did you see that Eris, spirit of discord, is one of Nyx's children?

And her consort is Erebus who was actually a very bad villain in a previous generation...

3582876 So, Twilight Nyx isn't creative, but Nyx Sparkle is?

3582881 Yes, i did notice. And it looks like Discord's going to have a new reformed villain for his club

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Personally I'm a-ok with Nyx Sparkle. It's just too alien and confusing to try and make any sense of nonstandard family naming conventions people come up with. I think that most of them were created without any thought whatsoever given to the implications of family names. Most ponies seem to be named entirely based on personal traits.

Which brings up a whole batch of questions about how ponies are named. It seems that heaps of ponies are given names directly related to their profession or their "special talent". And yet we all know that the cutie mark is supposed represent the special talent, and nopony knows their cutie mark until it appears. So when you have a pony whose name is Archer, and surprise surprise she's good with the bow and has a bow for a cutie mark, it begs the question as to whether her parents named her Archer at birth!

Or what of OCs like Spell Nexus' butler Proper Etiquette. Does that sound like a name given to a pony at birth? Not a chance.

Do ponies perhaps change their names after they come into their own? This was practiced more in ancient times when people did end up taking on names that described their unique traits. Traits which would definitely not be foreseeable when they were born.

Another thought is that names could actually be pseudonyms kind of like we all do on the internet. Your name might be Greg in real life but you're HipStar321 to everyone who knows you online. Giving yourself your own custom name because it suits you rather than what you were born with is something which is actually incredibly common in this age with the internet, even though I think most people don't even realize it. In ancient times, I think this likely happened quite a bit. And the practice seems to fit the evidence in Equestria quite well.

So anyways, back to Nyx, I'm fine with Nyx Sparkle. Even in Fallout Equestria, they call Twilight's mother "Star Sparkle". It can't be just Fo:E doing this either, because if you do a Google Image search on that name, you get images of Twi's mom.

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I got a reply notification and was like ??? I haven't posted on any threads lately...

Well I was right...

3706363 Haha. The longest one I've had was some obscure comment I made on a youtube video that got replied to over two years later. I couldn't even remember making that comment.