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[aDwarfNamedUrist]

There is much debate over whether the surname should be male or female, and some may have proposed that it be random, but I have a different idea. The first part of the last name is inherited from the father and the second part from the mother. Also, when dwarves get names like Urist Cogdoren the Foundation of Ages, the clan name should then become Foundation for the clan of that dwarf's gender

[GoblinCookie]

There is much debate over whether the surname should be male or female, and some may have proposed that it be random, but I have a different idea. The first part of the last name is inherited from the father and the second part from the mother. Also, when dwarves get names like Urist Cogdoren the Foundation of Ages, the clan name should then become Foundation for the clan of that dwarf's gender

I don't think the surname should be based upon gender at all.  Dwarves should keep their present personal surnames and the surnames of both their parents should be combined like this.  Urist Yellowhammer marries Cog Partnergirders, all their children regardless of gender end up with the name Yellowgirders since that is the combination of the personal surname of both their parents.  We then have a Yellowgirders family entity.

[Urist McClown]

I can see a slight problem with assigning names that way though. Let's assume Urist's brother Zol marries Cog's sister Odom. Then Zol and Odom's children would have the exact same surname as Urist and Cog's.

As for Clan membership, I'd go for a system similar to entity membership or belief. E.g., if Urist Cogdoren the Foundation of Ages is the founder of the Foundation of Ages clan, then his children will be 50% members of the Foundation of Ages clan, and their children 25% members. Clan membership is openly professed for the Clan dwarves (or humans...) have the highest percentage in, with a text like "Urist is a clan member of the Foundation of Ages and related to the Fires of Freezing clan" for a dwarf with 25% Foundation of Ages and 12,5% Fires of Freezing membership. Ties in clan membership should be broken by clan prestige - probably number of histfigs killed before reintroduction of the economy, and clan wealth after.

I'd also argue any new king or queen should establish a new clan, if (s)he isn't already. That way we could e.g. track the strength of claims of various potential successors in case the current ruler dies childless.

[Madman198237]

Clans should be much more direct---lineages of patrilineal or matrilineal societies should hold constant. So, in patrilineal [based on father/son] societies, the eldest son is ALWAYS part of the clan, whereas others who marry can choose based on clan prestige of their clan vs. prestige of their spouses' clan which clan they belong to, with additional weight given to their own clan if they are male in a patrilineal society, for example.

To make it simpler, if the society follows the male side of the family, males should tend to keep their own clan name, females be more receptive to taking a new name (Especially if the new clan is more prestigious than their own), and vice versa for female-side-following societies.
This will allow for clans to stretch across ages, and sometimes die, but not just evaporate into the void, the way this suggestion proposes.

Also, keeping large clans alive through the ages leads to grudges, which lead to feuds, which leads to lots and lots and lots and lots of !!FUN!!! Especially for the fortress that becomes the mountainhome, which would logically lead to the most powerful dwarves (Leaders of ancient clans) emigrating to follow the monarch (I.e., the base of power).

[Icefire2314]

I can see a slight problem with assigning names that way though. Let's assume Urist's brother Zol marries Cog's sister Odom. Then Zol and Odom's children would have the exact same surname as Urist and Cog's.

As for Clan membership, I'd go for a system similar to entity membership or belief. E.g., if Urist Cogdoren the Foundation of Ages is the founder of the Foundation of Ages clan, then his children will be 50% members of the Foundation of Ages clan, and their children 25% members. Clan membership is openly professed for the Clan dwarves (or humans...) have the highest percentage in, with a text like "Urist is a clan member of the Foundation of Ages and related to the Fires of Freezing clan" for a dwarf with 25% Foundation of Ages and 12,5% Fires of Freezing membership. Ties in clan membership should be broken by clan prestige - probably number of histfigs killed before reintroduction of the economy, and clan wealth after.

I'd also argue any new king or queen should establish a new clan, if (s)he isn't already. That way we could e.g. track the strength of claims of various potential successors in case the current ruler dies childless.

This kind of sounds like assigning nationalities, which I find an intriguing idea.

[Dyret]

Probably better to let the game roll up various conventions for the various entities in worldgen, get some more cultural diversity in there.

[Hinaichigo]

I don't think the surname should be based upon gender at all.  Dwarves should keep their present personal surnames and the surnames of both their parents should be combined like this.  Urist Yellowhammer marries Cog Partnergirders, all their children regardless of gender end up with the name Yellowgirders since that is the combination of the personal surname of both their parents.  We then have a Yellowgirders family entity.

If you did that then every generation the names would re-mix every generation right, unless they kept interbreeding within the clan.

For example, Obok Yellowgirders marries Kadol Bluecrystals. Their babies would be Yellowcrystals (or Bluegirders), thus ending the Yellowgirders clan in a single generation.

[Urist McClown]

Clans should be much more direct---lineages of patrilineal or matrilineal societies should hold constant. So, in patrilineal [based on father/son] societies, the eldest son is ALWAYS part of the clan, whereas others who marry can choose based on clan prestige of their clan vs. prestige of their spouses' clan which clan they belong to, with additional weight given to their own clan if they are male in a patrilineal society, for example.

To make it simpler, if the society follows the male side of the family, males should tend to keep their own clan name, females be more receptive to taking a new name (Especially if the new clan is more prestigious than their own), and vice versa for female-side-following societies.
This will allow for clans to stretch across ages, and sometimes die, but not just evaporate into the void, the way this suggestion proposes.

Also, keeping large clans alive through the ages leads to grudges, which lead to feuds, which leads to lots and lots and lots and lots of !!FUN!!! Especially for the fortress that becomes the mountainhome, which would logically lead to the most powerful dwarves (Leaders of ancient clans) emigrating to follow the monarch (I.e., the base of power).

Dwarfs shouldn't be patri- or matrilineal, though, given the current social context (if that context changes, we can talk about that model again). So unless Toady introduces social gender distinctions in parallel or beforehand, I'd be against either for dwarves.

As for my suggestion, the dirty little secret is that clans will not just evaporate - the child of two people with membership in any given clan will have a membership percentage in between either of their parents. In the long run, I'd expect the clan membership percentage to stabilize once most members of the population have some ancestor who once was a member of the clan in question.

I do like the general naming idea with mixing and matching parental surnames, however. It reminds me of Spanish naming customs.

Dyret's point is well-taken though. Mixing and matching these systems not just between races but also between cultures would be much appreciated.

[Madman198237]

Really, though, we can all accept that DF slowly works at approximating a truly random, brutal, and fantastical version of the Middle Ages, mostly European in nature. Clan names need to passed down directly, otherwise it becomes far too hard for both us and the in-universe @ symbols, e's, H's, and anatomically inaccurate faces with beards to tell who's related to who and why. Eventually, societies should have enough depth to be patri- or matrilineal, since there is almost always some element of that, especially in the Middle Age cultures of Europe. Also, it's a realistic and easy way to track names and clans. Titles should be included. Orphans and low-caste/low-status clan members who gain notoriety should be the ones to found new clans. Also, some method of relating clans (This family is part of the Longbeards clan, founded by Urist McExtremelyflippinglongbeard the Axe-murderer of Beardedness) to each other would be great.

But my point is that somewhere, somehow, there must be a continuum of names. Heck, even if it's a title (Urist McSoggybritches of Longbeardland [as in, a place/structure/small room in somebody else's mansion, which is owned by his long-established family]) for noble dwarves, to differentiate them from common dwarves, who would simply share the last name of their parents.

If that made any sense. Basically, I'm just saying you can't mix-and-match names, otherwise you almost certainly HAVE to have a society that gives no stock to lineage, because otherwise they would, logically, have developed, and developed rapidly, a system of tracking lineage [i.e., OBVIOUS NAMES]

[Urist McClown]

But the names would already include both patri- and matrilineal information, at least if applied consistently in the manner proposed. So, Urist Yellowgirders would then, in the male line, be a descendant of people who all have their name starting with Yellow-, and in the female line a descendant of people who were all named -girders. Information about matrilineal male relatives or patrilineal female relatives would be harder to track, but that's the case in our own system, too.

[Wedolko]

There is much debate over whether the surname should be male or female

Why? Obviously it should be the man's surname. If people are gonna get their nickers in a twist about it then just go with whoever is wealthier and/or has a higher title.

King/Queen>Barron>whatever the rest of the ruling class noble names are in order of importance>mayor>Militia commander>Militia captains>working class nobles like bookeepers and managers>high class tradesmen like smiths and jewelers>low class tradesmen like woodcarvers and clothesmakers>farmers>filthy peasants

Seems pretty easy to me. You would want to keep the name of your high class smith mother or father rather than the farmers name. I don't see how there is any debate over this.

[GoblinCookie]

I can see a slight problem with assigning names that way though. Let's assume Urist's brother Zol marries Cog's sister Odom. Then Zol and Odom's children would have the exact same surname as Urist and Cog's.

As for Clan membership, I'd go for a system similar to entity membership or belief. E.g., if Urist Cogdoren the Foundation of Ages is the founder of the Foundation of Ages clan, then his children will be 50% members of the Foundation of Ages clan, and their children 25% members. Clan membership is openly professed for the Clan dwarves (or humans...) have the highest percentage in, with a text like "Urist is a clan member of the Foundation of Ages and related to the Fires of Freezing clan" for a dwarf with 25% Foundation of Ages and 12,5% Fires of Freezing membership. Ties in clan membership should be broken by clan prestige - probably number of histfigs killed before reintroduction of the economy, and clan wealth after.

I'd also argue any new king or queen should establish a new clan, if (s)he isn't already. That way we could e.g. track the strength of claims of various potential successors in case the current ruler dies childless.

We are not replacing the surnames that exist at the moment, we are adding another surname AFTER the randomly generated personal surname. The situation you are referring to won't happen because the sister and brother will have their own personal surnames which will combine to produce a completely new family name for themselves and their children. 

A family name is generated when two people marry using their own personal surnames and then added in after the happy couple's surname.  Any children that are born to them inherit their family name after their personal surname, which effectively means that no character can have more than 3 surnames at a given time (personal,nuclear family,extended family).

In order to make the thing persist beyond two generations (but why?) what we have to do is ignore the normal name forming rules for the first child of an existing family to marry, provided they are marrying somebody who is not the first person to marry in their family also.  If two first to marry's marry, then we create a new family like normal and treat the second marriage as if it were the first in regards to family name passing on (then the third, fourth, so on).

There is much debate over whether the surname should be male or female

Why? Obviously it should be the man's surname. If people are gonna get their nickers in a twist about it then just go with whoever is wealthier and/or has a higher title.

King/Queen>Barron>whatever the rest of the ruling class noble names are in order of importance>mayor>Militia commander>Militia captains>working class nobles like bookeepers and managers>high class tradesmen like smiths and jewelers>low class tradesmen like woodcarvers and clothesmakers>farmers>filthy peasants

Seems pretty easy to me. You would want to keep the name of your high class smith mother or father rather than the farmers name. I don't see how there is any debate over this.

Obviously nothing Wedolko and you know it.

As unpleasant and dystopian as your basic vision for Dwarf Fortress is, it presupposes a whole level of certainty existing that rarely exists in real life.  The only way that your system could actually work is if somebody actually classified the whole population into fixed castes based upon a fixed number of determinate professions and then gave them a definite, largely arbitrary order.

There is also nothing about the rank *you* have listed that is anything but arbitrary.  Managers for instance would rank as one of the most powerful positions, second only to a mayor or baron.  Militia Captains would certainly *not* outrank managers in any sane system whatsoever, given how they are lowly blade fodder for the most part. 

[Wedolko]

There is much debate over whether the surname should be male or female

Why? Obviously it should be the man's surname. If people are gonna get their nickers in a twist about it then just go with whoever is wealthier and/or has a higher title.

King/Queen>Barron>whatever the rest of the ruling class noble names are in order of importance>mayor>Militia commander>Militia captains>working class nobles like bookeepers and managers>high class tradesmen like smiths and jewelers>low class tradesmen like woodcarvers and clothesmakers>farmers>filthy peasants

Seems pretty easy to me. You would want to keep the name of your high class smith mother or father rather than the farmers name. I don't see how there is any debate over this.

Obviously nothing Wedolko and you know it.

As unpleasant and dystopian as your basic vision for Dwarf Fortress is, it presupposes a whole level of certainty existing that rarely exists in real life.  The only way that your system could actually work is if somebody actually classified the whole population into fixed castes based upon a fixed number of determinate professions and then gave them a definite, largely arbitrary order.

There is also nothing about the rank *you* have listed that is anything but arbitrary.  Managers for instance would rank as one of the most powerful positions, second only to a mayor or baron.  Militia Captains would certainly *not* outrank managers in any sane system whatsoever, given how they are lowly blade fodder for the most part.

Unpleasent? Dystopian? What because I suggested that the richer of the two partners should be used? Or are you refering to keeping the man's surname, like most every society has done for thousands of years? That's a pretty far stretch to go over choice in last names, it's not like I'm suggesting anything unusual. This is what I mean when I say people getting their nickers in a twist.
There's nothing about the system I suggested that is unusual or unworkable. Every sentient creature in DF is already classified by occupation, and some occupations are more valuable than others. Add a number value to each occupation, and when two sentient beings have children the last name with a higher value is given to the child, be it from it's mother or father. Two people with the same value occupation can take from the father. Now you are right in saying that I may have gotten the order wrong, but don't insult me by dismissing this idea altogether. It's far better than hyphenated or mixed clan names and makes a lot more sense than having it chose randomly. Why would the son of a queen take the surname of the low-born farmer she got freaky with? A last name is a title that people have held proudly through many generations, not an arbitrary jumble of words you put after your first name

[Urist McClown]

Unpleasent? Dystopian? What because I suggested that the richer of the two partners should be used? Or are you refering to keeping the man's surname, like most every society has done for thousands of years? That's a pretty far stretch to go over choice in last names, it's not like I'm suggesting anything unusual. This is what I mean when I say people getting their nickers in a twist.
There's nothing about the system I suggested that is unusual or unworkable. Every sentient creature in DF is already classified by occupation, and some occupations are more valuable than others. Add a number value to each occupation, and when two sentient beings have children the last name with a higher value is given to the child, be it from it's mother or father. Two people with the same value occupation can take from the father. Now you are right in saying that I may have gotten the order wrong, but don't insult me by dismissing this idea altogether. It's far better than hyphenated or mixed clan names and makes a lot more sense than having it chose randomly. Why would the son of a queen take the surname of the low-born farmer she got freaky with? A last name is a title that people have held proudly through many generations, not an arbitrary jumble of words you put after your first name

No, keeping the male surname wasn't always done, and certainly not for millennia. In fact, the concept of surnames as we know them is only about 1000 years old (yes, the Romans had surnames, too... but they were pretty much the exception in the ancient world with that, and their surnames were more alike to clan membership and were indeed often passed down by adoption). Until around 1800, many people in the West didn't even have surnames!

As for surnames being passed down in the male line, that's quite debatable, too. Many Native American peoples used to track clan membership through their mothers - namely Carib, Coctaw, Cherokee, Hopi, Navajo and Iroquois. Basques, Berber and Jews also have matrilineal clan membership principles.

[Wedolko]

Unpleasent? Dystopian? What because I suggested that the richer of the two partners should be used? Or are you refering to keeping the man's surname, like most every society has done for thousands of years? That's a pretty far stretch to go over choice in last names, it's not like I'm suggesting anything unusual. This is what I mean when I say people getting their nickers in a twist.
There's nothing about the system I suggested that is unusual or unworkable. Every sentient creature in DF is already classified by occupation, and some occupations are more valuable than others. Add a number value to each occupation, and when two sentient beings have children the last name with a higher value is given to the child, be it from it's mother or father. Two people with the same value occupation can take from the father. Now you are right in saying that I may have gotten the order wrong, but don't insult me by dismissing this idea altogether. It's far better than hyphenated or mixed clan names and makes a lot more sense than having it chose randomly. Why would the son of a queen take the surname of the low-born farmer she got freaky with? A last name is a title that people have held proudly through many generations, not an arbitrary jumble of words you put after your first name

No, keeping the male surname wasn't always done, and certainly not for millennia. In fact, the concept of surnames as we know them is only about 1000 years old (yes, the Romans had surnames, too... but they were pretty much the exception in the ancient world with that, and their surnames were more alike to clan membership and were indeed often passed down by adoption). Until around 1800, many people in the West didn't even have surnames!

As for surnames being passed down in the male line, that's quite debatable, too. Many Native American peoples used to track clan membership through their mothers - namely Carib, Coctaw, Cherokee, Hopi, Navajo and Iroquois. Basques, Berber and Jews also have matrilineal clan membership principles.

I did not know that about the native americans, thank you for the information. I know that in ancient Islamic culture names were very complex and based on your place in society. But I remain firm in my stance, surnames in DF should be taken from the parent with the most status first and the father if there is a tie. Personally I'd also like to see nobles have an aversion to having children with commoners but that's a different forum topic for another day that I'm sure I'll end up writing up. In every fantasy world I've seen from Dragon Age to LOTR to Warhammer dwarves have always been creatures of tradition and status and while I'm aware DF dwarves are not the exact same I see no reason for them not to be as well. In many fantasy worlds many dwarves work their whole young lives to impress a noble of the opposite sex and get their names into the noble caste. That being said I think it should follow that the dwarf with a higher status should keep their last name.