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[Icefire2314]

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.

I like this. Child takes the clan name of the wealthier or more powerful parent. It would be really cool if we could look at family trees in game.  If we have beloved soldier who dies in a fort, retire it and start a new one, it would be awesome to see years later that their descendant many times down the tree has migrated to your fort.

While this may not be probable, it adds flavor to the game for little resources. You could also track how powerful certain clans become.

[SixOfSpades]

. . . we should definitely get rid of the combat titles because they are basically redundant once we have hero names, the result of this naming system does not result in longer names than the combat names give at present.

I have to disagree with you there--granted, the current combat-title system is just a meaningless word salad, but once the system is overhauled to use only words that have some relevance to the actual deed(s) performed, the variation in structure will prove essential to breaking the monotony. Why should every combat title be a two-part compound like Goblinbreaker, Slashthroat, or Hammerrighteous? Mix it up a bit with "Proud Archer of Eyes", "Slayer of Hundreds", "Four on a Spear", or "the Blind Strangle of Gripping".

However it is still the best system since the text is never redundant,

On the item is an image of Green-Hammerrighteous Wonderhammer Elfbelly Elfslayer the dwarf and Hauntsbrute the sand raider in yak bone. Green-Hammerrighteous Wonderhammer Elfbelly Elfslayer is making a plaintive gesture. Hauntsbrute is laughing. The artwork relates to the breaking of the first finger, left hand of the dwarf Green-Hammerrighteous Wonderhammer Elfbelly Elfslayer by the sand raider Hauntsbrute in the late autumn of 438 during the Third Attempted Abduction at Azureplume.

As well, the name itself IS partially redundant, as the combinations inherent in the Family and Marital surnames mean certain elements are needlessly repeated, not to mention that a good deal of its content duplicates what's already present in each dwarf's Status and Relationships screens.

. . . with simpler surname systems we end with lots of basically unrelated people with the same surname.  While result is shorter, it is also pointless since it reveals no information about family relationships, so we are better off with the Status Quo.

With my system, yes, you could have the same lineage name as your 19th cousin. But that's what clans DO: They take people who may have been raised quite far apart and might never have even met before, and remind them that they share a common bloodline and should be allies--for to become enemies would surely displease the very ancestor from whose name they draw honor.
My system is "pointless" because it "reveals no information about family relationships"? If you had read my example, you'd know that each dwarf has both a parent's name (& therefore a shared name common to all their siblings) to delineate a nuclear-family unit, and a lineage name to give them a place in a long-lasting clan. The middle name anchors them in space, while the last name roots them in time, if you will. I fail to see how DF's status quo of random name assignment is in any way superior to this.

Hiding names makes sense from the POV of making the names not entirely random but reflecting the personality of the individual in some fashion. It does not make sense for babies to have those names at birth because nobody (should) know what they are like yet.

I don't know, at least naming newborns based on their existing personality traits makes a lot more sense than, for instance, boys being born already sporting long, braided beards.

What are 'clans' in this context?

As I said earlier, clans are extended family groups that share a common name for a long time. I believe certain exceptionally accomplished dwarves should be given the choice to breaking from their existing family traditions by naming future descendants after themselves, rather than some historically important ancestor. Whether already-born children would change their last names is debatable, the dwarf in question probably would not. Accomplished dwarves could start new clans if and ONLY if they already have at least 1 child, and the original clan would still have at least 1 married couple currently producing children. In addition, dwarves would be less likely to break off to start their own clans if there were only a few members of their existing clan alive in the world, and more likely to start new clans if there were already many members of their old clan living in the fort.

. . . A child is born to them, because Purple-Hammerrighteous's hero-name outranks that of Yellow-Inkrinsed the child is called Green-Hammerrighteous Wonderhammer. When the child grows up it becomes Green-Hammerrighteous Wonderhammer Elfslayer, the latter is it's personal surname.  Green-Hammerrighteous then marries White Breadtaken Vinebelly, this causes it to become Green-Hammerrighteous Wonderhammer Elfbelly Elfslayer; the longest name possible.

This Hammerrighteous hero name seems a lot more enduring than the family names. You should make it clear that that's the clan designation in your system. Why would anybody backtrack through 9 generations of different marital surnames when the constant, the hero name, is right there?

The name breaks down to [First Name]+[Hero Name] [Family Surname] [Marital surname] [Personal Surname].

Well, it's no Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfernschplendenschlittercrasscrenbonfrieddiggerdingledangledongledunglebursteinvonknackerthrasher-applebangerhorowitzticolensicgranderknottyspelltinklegrandlichgrumblemeyerspelterwasserkurstlichhimbleeisenbahnwagengutenabendbitteein-
nürnburgebratwustlegerspurtenmitzweimacheluberhundsfutgumberabershönedankerkalbsfleischmittleraucher von Hautkopft of Ulm, but it's a good start.

It does not matter what the basis we use to eliminate the name, the result is the same.  While we may, by coming up with a mechanism for adding in new names, that does not solve the problem.  The problem is that you cannot conclude any relationship based upon the fact two people share the same surname.

I for one don't see that as a "problem". The vast majority of people in this world share their surname with individuals who are only very distantly related, and would never be considered as "family". I see your apparent aim, giving every single dwarven family its own unique surname, as an infeasible goal at best, not to mention rather clumsy.

It would be really cool if we could look at family trees in game.  . . .  You could also track how powerful certain clans become.

Yes. Rather than trying to encode every single dwarf's immediate family history into their name (which will be repeated over & over again on every description of them, and every menu in which they will appear), to me it makes far more sense to relegate that data to each dwarf's Relationships screen, where (with future upgrades to the user interface) an actual family tree / clan structure can one day be shown.

[Lord_lemonpie]

In my opinion the naming system should be either matrineal or patrineal. Combining the names as mentioned before seems somewhat redundant and defeats the purpose of clans, as there will be no same-named lines.

Which one it is, matrineal or patrineal, doesn't bother me at all, but I imagine there'll always be people complaining. Personally, I'd suggest randomly generating which one it'll be for each civilization to avoid any drama. This way multiple dwarven civilizations can have different naming systems in one world, so everyone will have something they like.

To avoid the homogenization of surnames (there was a name for this, this is something actually occurring in real life too), I think clans should split sometimes. causes could be an inter-clan feud (e.g. clan Lanceholder to clan Black Lanceholder and White Lanceholder), people moving (e.g. a branch being renamed to Of Redfortress after moving to Redfortress), people doing something significant (e.g. a branch being renamed to Elfmaimed (significant kills), Hunter of Wolves (other kills), Swordforger (artifact-maker), or the Beekeeper (change of profession)), important marriages (e.g. after a marriage of the important clans Lanceholder and Elfmaimed, the children will be named Lanceholder-Elfmaimed), and for many other reasons (including totally random). Of course, this shouldn't happen too often, as it would defeat the purpose of clans. It would just serve as a way to keep clans from going too large, and in my opinion this should not happen to the oldest son/daughter, unless there is a specific cause. Just to the "lesser siblings", as it will serve as a way to keep clans from growing to incredible sizes.

[Phenoix12]

Which one it is, matrineal or patrineal, doesn't bother me at all, but I imagine there'll always be people complaining. Personally, I'd suggest randomly generating which one it'll be for each civilization to avoid any drama. This way multiple dwarven civilizations can have different naming systems in one world, so everyone will have something they like.

I agree... the whole debate of matrineal and patrineal surnames and all the talk of how sexiest it is above in just insane...  all sorts of different cultures have different naming systems. No need to argue over it.  Some places had traditionally patrineal systems others matrineal and so on.

Having it be random for each civ between matrineal, patrineal, clan, whatever-you-call-the-current-system, mixing names, ect ect. would be the best. But also I think there should be a RAW level tag for this sort of thing also so users could define civs that use a particularly naming system other then random.  Like... [SURNAME_RANDOM] for randomly picking a system and [SURNAME_MATRINEAL] to base the surname off of the mothers... and so on.

Also should be a token tag for adopting surnames...  like for making it so the wife adopts the surname of the husband or husband adopts the name of the wife or they just keep their own surnames.

Not to mention all the tags to solect what a surname may be... probably similar to selecting names for lands and such... select symbols and culling symbols.

[Putnam]

there's still homosexual marriage and adoption to consider

[SixOfSpades]

There's also the matter of posthumous births, or otherwise "half-orphaned" children. Suppose a dwarven father dies before his latest baby grows into a child, meaning that (if we're being realistic here) the child should have no memory of its father. Such a child would be raised by the mother alone, and would probably feel inclined to take on HER family name, even in a society where patronymics or name-mixing is the norm. So for example, if Vucar Lobsterpaddled and Cog Wheelmesh had a kid, and therefore the kid would ordinarily be named Lobstermesh, but Cog died in childbirth leaving Vucar alone to raise the baby himself, then the child might choose to fully align herself with her "only" parent, and use the surname Lobsterpaddled.

This possibility would be mitigated, however, or perhaps even nullified entirely, if the half-orphan has living siblings. If there were already a couple of Lobstermesh kids running around, then the half-orphan would probably not want to disavow kinship with them, and therefore would retain the name of the mother she never met.

[GoblinCookie]

I have to disagree with you there--granted, the current combat-title system is just a meaningless word salad, but once the system is overhauled to use only words that have some relevance to the actual deed(s) performed, the variation in structure will prove essential to breaking the monotony. Why should every combat title be a two-part compound like Goblinbreaker, Slashthroat, or Hammerrighteous? Mix it up a bit with "Proud Archer of Eyes", "Slayer of Hundreds", "Four on a Spear", or "the Blind Strangle of Gripping".

Those are better handled by the profession names. 

On the item is an image of Green-Hammerrighteous Wonderhammer Elfbelly Elfslayer the dwarf and Hauntsbrute the sand raider in yak bone. Green-Hammerrighteous Wonderhammer Elfbelly Elfslayer is making a plaintive gesture. Hauntsbrute is laughing. The artwork relates to the breaking of the first finger, left hand of the dwarf Green-Hammerrighteous Wonderhammer Elfbelly Elfslayer by the sand raider Hauntsbrute in the late autumn of 438 during the Third Attempted Abduction at Azureplume.

As well, the name itself IS partially redundant, as the combinations inherent in the Family and Marital surnames mean certain elements are needlessly repeated, not to mention that a good deal of its content duplicates what's already present in each dwarf's Status and Relationships screens.

It is no different from the present situation with multiple people with hero names.  It does not matter that it duplicates what is in the relationships screen because we cannot see this except in certain contexts. 

With my system, yes, you could have the same lineage name as your 19th cousin. But that's what clans DO: They take people who may have been raised quite far apart and might never have even met before, and remind them that they share a common bloodline and should be allies--for to become enemies would surely displease the very ancestor from whose name they draw honor.
My system is "pointless" because it "reveals no information about family relationships"? If you had read my example, you'd know that each dwarf has both a parent's name (& therefore a shared name common to all their siblings) to delineate a nuclear-family unit, and a lineage name to give them a place in a long-lasting clan. The middle name anchors them in space, while the last name roots them in time, if you will. I fail to see how DF's status quo of random name assignment is in any way superior to this.

Everyone ultimately shares the same ancestry SixOfSpades.  It does not follow that we *must* be allies because we have the same ancestry. 

I don't know, at least naming newborns based on their existing personality traits makes a lot more sense than, for instance, boys being born already sporting long, braided beards.

But they do not know what the personality traits are yet.  I was thinking ahead to a point where personality might alter over the course of a childhood. 

As I said earlier, clans are extended family groups that share a common name for a long time. I believe certain exceptionally accomplished dwarves should be given the choice to breaking from their existing family traditions by naming future descendants after themselves, rather than some historically important ancestor. Whether already-born children would change their last names is debatable, the dwarf in question probably would not. Accomplished dwarves could start new clans if and ONLY if they already have at least 1 child, and the original clan would still have at least 1 married couple currently producing children. In addition, dwarves would be less likely to break off to start their own clans if there were only a few members of their existing clan alive in the world, and more likely to start new clans if there were already many members of their old clan living in the fort.

So clans are basically site governments or civ governments? What is the significance of clans given that everyone descends from the same ancestry anyway, meaning that the clan is basically the whole civilization. 

This Hammerrighteous hero name seems a lot more enduring than the family names. You should make it clear that that's the clan designation in your system. Why would anybody backtrack through 9 generations of different marital surnames when the constant, the hero name, is right there?

Because almost everyone ends up being called Hammerrighteous, hence the whole thing becomes pointless.  The hero name system is replacing the hero names that presently exists and carry out your function of allowing a group people to track ancestry back to a legendary hero. 

I for one don't see that as a "problem". The vast majority of people in this world share their surname with individuals who are only very distantly related, and would never be considered as "family". I see your apparent aim, giving every single dwarven family its own unique surname, as an infeasible goal at best, not to mention rather clumsy.

Yes it is a problem in real-life, which means if introduced into the game it is also a problem.

there's still homosexual marriage and adoption to consider

We just have to consider adoption really.

[Putnam]

The problem comes when adoption itself assumes parents of a different sex, which obviously dwarf fortress won't do (on account of the fact that it already doesn't) but a conceptual process of naming adoptive couples wouldn't.

[Azerty]

In my opinion the naming system should be either matrineal or patrineal. Combining the names as mentioned before seems somewhat redundant and defeats the purpose of clans, as there will be no same-named lines.

Which one it is, matrineal or patrineal, doesn't bother me at all, but I imagine there'll always be people complaining. Personally, I'd suggest randomly generating which one it'll be for each civilization to avoid any drama. This way multiple dwarven civilizations can have different naming systems in one world, so everyone will have something they like.

To avoid the homogenization of surnames (there was a name for this, this is something actually occurring in real life too), I think clans should split sometimes. causes could be an inter-clan feud (e.g. clan Lanceholder to clan Black Lanceholder and White Lanceholder), people moving (e.g. a branch being renamed to Of Redfortress after moving to Redfortress), people doing something significant (e.g. a branch being renamed to Elfmaimed (significant kills), Hunter of Wolves (other kills), Swordforger (artifact-maker), or the Beekeeper (change of profession)), important marriages (e.g. after a marriage of the important clans Lanceholder and Elfmaimed, the children will be named Lanceholder-Elfmaimed), and for many other reasons (including totally random). Of course, this shouldn't happen too often, as it would defeat the purpose of clans. It would just serve as a way to keep clans from going too large, and in my opinion this should not happen to the oldest son/daughter, unless there is a specific cause. Just to the "lesser siblings", as it will serve as a way to keep clans from growing to incredible sizes.

I totally agree with your post.

However, I think the splittling of the clans should be related to the genealogical and geographical separation.

For exemple, someone who is very removed from the head of the clan could split and create his own clan; likewise, someone living far from the center of this clan could split, especially if few relations exist with the head.

[GoblinCookie]

The problem comes when adoption itself assumes parents of a different sex, which obviously dwarf fortress won't do (on account of the fact that it already doesn't) but a conceptual process of naming adoptive couples wouldn't.

I thought I had already come up with a mechanic that essentially ignored questions of gender altogether, that of hyphenating the personal surnames names of both spouses to create a common family.  Which means that adopting children mechanics when worked out allow for homosexual parents to adopt orphaned children with no additional complications.

We can just replace the original parental surname (the one that pertains to the marriage of their parents) with the marital surname of the parents of the adopting couple, be they of the same gender or of different genders. 

In my opinion the naming system should be either matrineal or patrineal. Combining the names as mentioned before seems somewhat redundant and defeats the purpose of clans, as there will be no same-named lines.

Which one it is, matrineal or patrineal, doesn't bother me at all, but I imagine there'll always be people complaining. Personally, I'd suggest randomly generating which one it'll be for each civilization to avoid any drama. This way multiple dwarven civilizations can have different naming systems in one world, so everyone will have something they like.

To avoid the homogenization of surnames (there was a name for this, this is something actually occurring in real life too), I think clans should split sometimes. causes could be an inter-clan feud (e.g. clan Lanceholder to clan Black Lanceholder and White Lanceholder), people moving (e.g. a branch being renamed to Of Redfortress after moving to Redfortress), people doing something significant (e.g. a branch being renamed to Elfmaimed (significant kills), Hunter of Wolves (other kills), Swordforger (artifact-maker), or the Beekeeper (change of profession)), important marriages (e.g. after a marriage of the important clans Lanceholder and Elfmaimed, the children will be named Lanceholder-Elfmaimed), and for many other reasons (including totally random). Of course, this shouldn't happen too often, as it would defeat the purpose of clans. It would just serve as a way to keep clans from going too large, and in my opinion this should not happen to the oldest son/daughter, unless there is a specific cause. Just to the "lesser siblings", as it will serve as a way to keep clans from growing to incredible sizes.

I totally agree with your post.

However, I think the splittling of the clans should be related to the genealogical and geographical separation.

For exemple, someone who is very removed from the head of the clan could split and create his own clan; likewise, someone living far from the center of this clan could split, especially if few relations exist with the head.

Clans are not about surnames nor particularly about ancestry.  What clans are is more like what we present call a site government than a loose network of individuals that are vaguely related.  Historically clans were units of collective property ownership, hence the comparison with DF site governments, they died off pretty fast as soon as the collective clan territories were privatized (aka the highland clearances and English takeover of Ireland in general).  If we are going to have clan surnames we are best off deciding this based upon what site government controls the site in which the child was born than trying to use actual biological ancestry.  That there are always multiple site governments would prevent the problem of 'surname expansion' and also completely ignore questions of gender+status altogether. 

[SixOfSpades]

. . . once the [combat title] system is overhauled to use only words that have some relevance to the actual deed(s) performed, the variation in structure will prove essential to breaking the monotony. Mix it up a bit with "Proud Archer of Eyes", "Slayer of Hundreds", "Four on a Spear", or "the Blind Strangle of Gripping".

Those are better handled by the profession names.

If a young Speardwarf should happen to end her first pitting session with her spear in a shish-kabob of four goblin heads, please explain to me why "Speardwarf" is a better handle for her than "Four on a Spear". Yes, it's slightly shorter. But it doesn't identify her, which is the entire point of a name.

As well, the name itself IS partially redundant, as the combinations inherent in the Family and Marital surnames mean certain elements are needlessly repeated, not to mention that a good deal of its content duplicates what's already present in each dwarf's Status and Relationships screens.

It is no different from the present situation with multiple people with hero names.  It does not matter that it duplicates what is in the relationships screen because we cannot see this except in certain contexts.

Umm, I was talking about repetition. So, when you say "multiple people with hero names", did you mean "multiple people with THE SAME hero names"? Because that is not the "present situation". The only dwarves with the same hero name are from your own suggestion, where seemingly half the fort is named Hammerrighteous.
And yes, it DOES matter that it duplicates the Relationships screen, because when I'm looking over a list of dwarves--whether I'm assigning bedrooms, checking medical records, drafting a military or whatnot--I don't care about the extended family history of every single dwarf, and I don't imagine many other players do either. The text space in the split-screen display is limited enough, leave the genealogy where it belongs--in a screen that is 100% text anyway.

With my system, yes, you could have the same lineage name as your 19th cousin. But that's what clans DO: They take people who may have been raised quite far apart and might never have even met before, and remind them that they share a common bloodline and should be allies--for to become enemies would surely displease the very ancestor from whose name they draw honor.

Everyone ultimately shares the same ancestry SixOfSpades.  It does not follow that we *must* be allies because we have the same ancestry.

Humans are indeed all descended from Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam. But we're talking about dwarves, which were individually all created in the time before time and were not related to each other then, so theoretically populations could remain genetically distinct forever. There's also the issue of starting new clans, which indicates a clear break from the rest of the family & their history, which would be far more meaningful than simply sharing a genetic background. And yes, all families fight, even those that don't charge their names as a result.

I don't know, at least naming newborns based on their existing personality traits makes a lot more sense than, for instance, boys being born already sporting long, braided beards.

But they do not know what the personality traits are yet.  I was thinking ahead to a point where personality might alter over the course of a childhood.

The dwarves don't know the baby's personality, but the game does. Sure it's a little unrealistic, but I for one would have no problem if the game "randomly" assigned vaguely appropriate names at birth, instead of a few years down the road.

As I said earlier, clans are extended family groups that share a common name for a long time. I believe certain exceptionally accomplished dwarves should be given the choice to break from their existing family traditions by naming future descendants after themselves, rather than some historically important ancestor. Whether already-born children would change their last names is debatable, the dwarf in question probably would not. Accomplished dwarves could start new clans if and ONLY if they already have at least 1 child, and the original clan would still have at least 1 married couple currently producing children. In addition, dwarves would be less likely to break off to start their own clans if there were only a few members of their existing clan alive in the world, and more likely to start new clans if there were already many members of their old clan living in the fort.

So clans are basically site governments or civ governments? What is the significance of clans given that everyone descends from the same ancestry anyway, meaning that the clan is basically the whole civilization.

I am honestly a bit flabbergasted by your interpretation. I state that
1) "clans are extended family groups", and then
2) here's a bunch of possible rules about dwarves changing their names (& thus starting new clans), even if they stay in the same fort.
You seem to have taken those ideas, and somehow garbled them into meaning that
1) clans are a form of government, (WTF?)
2) everybody's all in one big clan,
3) so why have clans at all, then?
Let me try to dispel these notions.
     Clans are FAMILIES. They might be large families, with a matriarch/patriarch fulfilling some quasi-official duties within the clan, and especially powerful clans might rise to become king/duchess/whatever, but the governmental associations end there. Clans stick together because their members are (usually closely) related, and that's it.
     For the most part, no civilization, or even a single fort, will all be one clan. Yes, the marriage/breeding restrictions that dwarves currently follow mean that the vast majority of dwarves will never reproduce, and therefore clans will die out at an alarming rate. But given the constant opportunity for new blood in the form of immigration, as well as the future possibility of dwarves deciding to start their own clans, it's clear that every fort should always have at least a decent variety of clan names. Heck, in my own suggested examples, there were two different clans within each family (sons took their father's clan name, while daughters followed their mother's), and the larger clans were far more likely to split than the smaller ones.

I for one don't see that as a "problem". The vast majority of people in this world share their surname with individuals who are only very distantly related, and would never be considered as "family". I see your apparent aim, giving every single dwarven family its own unique surname, as an infeasible goal at best, not to mention rather clumsy.

Yes it is a problem in real-life, which means if introduced into the game it is also a problem.

In-game or real life, it's only a problem if it occurs so often that the sheer commonness of the name defeats the very purpose of having a name. For example, if everyone in a group of people happened to be named either Smith or Jones, then referring to "Mr. Jones" or "Ms. Smith" would be pointless, and the names would drop out of use. But if there's at least, say, 1 last name per every 3 individuals, then it is indeed useful, especially when the number of first names is limited as well (which is precisely the case in DF), so you can distinguish Sharon Smith from Sharon Jones. And when the number of surnames is VERY large, then bumping into someone with whom you share a last name, but still consider yourselves unrelated, that's not a problem--that's an amusing novelty.

The problem comes when adoption itself assumes parents of a different sex, which obviously dwarf fortress won't do (on account of the fact that it already doesn't) but a conceptual process of naming adoptive couples wouldn't.

I thought I had already come up with a mechanic that essentially ignored questions of gender altogether

You and I both did a pretty good job of avoiding sexism, while still acknowledging the importance of gender--although I admit I failed to consider the possibility of same-sex dwarves adopting children of the other gender. In a society where female dwarves take their mother's clan name, what's a girl with two dads supposed to do? But still, that's not a problem, because the answer is easy: She will do whatever she wants. She might choose to name herself after either, or even both, of her adoptive fathers. She might choose to follow the clan of either of her natural parents, if their identities were known to her. She might band with a friend of the family, adopting her as a surrogate mother. She might join the clan of whatever craftsdwarf she gets apprenticed to. She might choose to take no surname at all until she marries, and graft herself into her spouse's clan. She might choose to take no name until she earns one in combat, starting her own clan in the process. The key to telling good stories is the opportunity for variety.

Clans are not about surnames nor particularly about ancestry.  What clans are is more like what we present call a site government than a loose network of individuals that are vaguely related.  Historically clans were units of collective property ownership, hence the comparison with DF site governments, they died off pretty fast as soon as the collective clan territories were privatized (aka the highland clearances and English takeover of Ireland in general).  If we are going to have clan surnames we are best off deciding this based upon what site government controls the site in which the child was born than trying to use actual biological ancestry.  That there are always multiple site governments would prevent the problem of 'surname expansion' and also completely ignore questions of gender+status altogether.

Wow.
That was . . . amazingly wrong.
I really don't know what the word "clan" means where you come from, but in English it means this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan
Read it, and notice that there is NO mention of "site government", "collective property ownership", "clan territories being privatized," or ANYthing like that. Now, it does mention that clans were an early form of government and wielded political power--that's because a clan was a large group of people, and large groups of people have political power, and usually need governing.
     But as the page makes clear, a clan is usually only PART of a given society. To use Game of Thrones as a setting, House Stark is a great House, but it's only one of several. Even if we ignore the majority of Westeros and concentrate only on the North, Stark is indeed the dominant House, but it must still consider the opinions of the lesser houses around it (Manderly, Hornwood, Glover, Bolton, Karstark, Umber, etc). It's only when we focus on Winterfell itself that "clan = site government" starts to become true . . . but even then, there are still families (Cassell, Poole), representatives of other houses (Greyjoy, Frey), and even individuals (Maester Luwin, Septon Chayle) who have the political clout to put even a Stark in check.
     Take your own statement, "We are best off deciding clan surnames based upon what site government controls the site in which the child was born than trying to use actual biological ancestry." I dare you to go tell Lord Tywin to his face that your bastard child should be named a Lannister, because it was born in Casterly Rock. See how long you last.

In future, please don't try to "win" discussions of a certain subject by attempting to redefine the subject itself.

[Lord_lemonpie]

Stance-wise I agree with SixOfSpades, but let's not turn this into a fight. Just saying this before it happens.

[GoblinCookie]

If a young Speardwarf should happen to end her first pitting session with her spear in a shish-kabob of four goblin heads, please explain to me why "Speardwarf" is a better handle for her than "Four on a Spear". Yes, it's slightly shorter. But it doesn't identify her, which is the entire point of a name.

Who said that we had to have names like that at all? I was saying that *if* we are going down the road of having names describing what an individual does we are better off replacing the profession names since they are redundant. 

Umm, I was talking about repetition. So, when you say "multiple people with hero names", did you mean "multiple people with THE SAME hero names"? Because that is not the "present situation". The only dwarves with the same hero name are from your own suggestion, where seemingly half the fort is named Hammerrighteous.
And yes, it DOES matter that it duplicates the Relationships screen, because when I'm looking over a list of dwarves--whether I'm assigning bedrooms, checking medical records, drafting a military or whatnot--I don't care about the extended family history of every single dwarf, and I don't imagine many other players do either. The text space in the split-screen display is limited enough, leave the genealogy where it belongs--in a screen that is 100% text anyway.

The hero names are inessential, it is just that the arrangement I favor, owing to the lengthy surnames that it creates (and which is it's only drawback) requires we get rid of the existing heroic 'surname phrases' the game presently

Humans are indeed all descended from Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam. But we're talking about dwarves, which were individually all created in the time before time and were not related to each other then, so theoretically populations could remain genetically distinct forever. There's also the issue of starting new clans, which indicates a clear break from the rest of the family & their history, which would be far more meaningful than simply sharing a genetic background. And yes, all families fight, even those that don't charge their names as a result.

Those dwarves, even if by for needless Occam's Razor defying reason they were all created unrelated to eachother, are still going to create the 'everyone is related to everyone else' situation before very long.

The dwarves don't know the baby's personality, but the game does. Sure it's a little unrealistic, but I for one would have no problem if the game "randomly" assigned vaguely appropriate names at birth, instead of a few years down the road.

I think for memory reasons it is best if the game assigns an initial personality at birth and then makes adjustments to it.  The game might know but it does not mean that we the player would know. 

I am honestly a bit flabbergasted by your interpretation. I state that
1) "clans are extended family groups", and then
2) here's a bunch of possible rules about dwarves changing their names (& thus starting new clans), even if they stay in the same fort.
You seem to have taken those ideas, and somehow garbled them into meaning that
1) clans are a form of government, (WTF?)
2) everybody's all in one big clan,
3) so why have clans at all, then?
Let me try to dispel these notions.
     Clans are FAMILIES. They might be large families, with a matriarch/patriarch fulfilling some quasi-official duties within the clan, and especially powerful clans might rise to become king/duchess/whatever, but the governmental associations end there. Clans stick together because their members are (usually closely) related, and that's it.
     For the most part, no civilization, or even a single fort, will all be one clan. Yes, the marriage/breeding restrictions that dwarves currently follow mean that the vast majority of dwarves will never reproduce, and therefore clans will die out at an alarming rate. But given the constant opportunity for new blood in the form of immigration, as well as the future possibility of dwarves deciding to start their own clans, it's clear that every fort should always have at least a decent variety of clan names. Heck, in my own suggested examples, there were two different clans within each family (sons took their father's clan name, while daughters followed their mother's), and the larger clans were far more likely to split than the smaller ones.

Yes clans are a form of government, that is historically correct.  Clans are also 'extended family groups', which is also historically correct; the latter claim is however meaningless since as  everyone is objectively related to everyone else any group of people whatsoever can imagine that they are all blood-kin and they will never be wrong. 

In-game or real life, it's only a problem if it occurs so often that the sheer commonness of the name defeats the very purpose of having a name. For example, if everyone in a group of people happened to be named either Smith or Jones, then referring to "Mr. Jones" or "Ms. Smith" would be pointless, and the names would drop out of use. But if there's at least, say, 1 last name per every 3 individuals, then it is indeed useful, especially when the number of first names is limited as well (which is precisely the case in DF), so you can distinguish Sharon Smith from Sharon Jones. And when the number of surnames is VERY large, then bumping into someone with whom you share a last name, but still consider yourselves unrelated, that's not a problem--that's an amusing novelty.

Yes, the commoner the name the greater the problem.  The problem is that there will be very few surnames because the number of initial founders to our population is small compared to the total population we end up with.  It is basically the same problem we have with genetic diversity, everyone generally ends up with the same hair/skin/eye colour because those things are hereditary. 

You and I both did a pretty good job of avoiding sexism, while still acknowledging the importance of gender--although I admit I failed to consider the possibility of same-sex dwarves adopting children of the other gender. In a society where female dwarves take their mother's clan name, what's a girl with two dads supposed to do? But still, that's not a problem, because the answer is easy: She will do whatever she wants. She might choose to name herself after either, or even both, of her adoptive fathers. She might choose to follow the clan of either of her natural parents, if their identities were known to her. She might band with a friend of the family, adopting her as a surrogate mother. She might join the clan of whatever craftsdwarf she gets apprenticed to. She might choose to take no surname at all until she marries, and graft herself into her spouse's clan. She might choose to take no name until she earns one in combat, starting her own clan in the process. The key to telling good stories is the opportunity for variety.

She cannot do 'what she wants' because she is a function of the computer program, thus she does only what we code her to do.

Wow.
That was . . . amazingly wrong.
I really don't know what the word "clan" means where you come from, but in English it means this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan
Read it, and notice that there is NO mention of "site government", "collective property ownership", "clan territories being privatized," or ANYthing like that. Now, it does mention that clans were an early form of government and wielded political power--that's because a clan was a large group of people, and large groups of people have political power, and usually need governing.
     But as the page makes clear, a clan is usually only PART of a given society. To use Game of Thrones as a setting, House Stark is a great House, but it's only one of several. Even if we ignore the majority of Westeros and concentrate only on the North, Stark is indeed the dominant House, but it must still consider the opinions of the lesser houses around it (Manderly, Hornwood, Glover, Bolton, Karstark, Umber, etc). It's only when we focus on Winterfell itself that "clan = site government" starts to become true . . . but even then, there are still families (Cassell, Poole), representatives of other houses (Greyjoy, Frey), and even individuals (Maester Luwin, Septon Chayle) who have the political clout to put even a Stark in check.
     Take your own statement, "We are best off deciding clan surnames based upon what site government controls the site in which the child was born than trying to use actual biological ancestry." I dare you to go tell Lord Tywin to his face that your bastard child should be named a Lannister, because it was born in Casterly Rock. See how long you last.

In future, please don't try to "win" discussions of a certain subject by attempting to redefine the subject itself.

I redefine nothing, I merely have a greater than a wikipedia level insight into this matter.  A clan is a political/territorial/economic/social unit, this element is the core of the matter and *not* the relatedness of it's members. 

The houses in Games of Thrones are *not* clans, they are *houses*.  That of course is shorthand for *household*, which imparts status upon the 'proper' members of the household (husband,wife,legitimate children), as opposed to the various servants they employ and the people of the land that they own/rule over.  This results in a considerable tension between the wealth and public power the house has obtained and the fact they are household with a small number of 'proper' members.  Illegitimacy is a big problem because it potentially blurs the biological line between the house's true members and it's various minions. 

Clans do not care much for illegitimacy, indeed in such societies bastards tend to be treated as just normal children with exactly the same status.  This is because the bastards are raised by the clan and it's households, meaning that no lines of status/property get blurred by the fact that children are born outside of wedlock.  The thing here is that while houses (the above) can rise to power over the below (clans) along the lines you described, they tend to clash, ultimately resulting in the destruction of the clan and the atomisation of it's component households, since the house does not need the clans but only the wealth produced by it's individual member's households. 

That is why, despite the fact that we are still all no less related to eachother, clans no longer exist in the modern world. The houses tend to gradually whittle away at the property claims of the clans themselves, carving the territories up among individual tenants or simply evicting the individual households that belong to the clan one by one. Clan resistance to this situation is where the word blackmail comes from, the highland clans would 'tax' (or mail) the peasants that the Scottish lords would place on the territories claimed by them and if the peasants did not pay up then the clanmembers would burn their houses down.

[SixOfSpades]

Stance-wise I agree with SixOfSpades, but let's not turn this into a fight. Just saying this before it happens.

Agreed. I've been a bit too flippant with my replies to GoblinCookie in my earlier posts in this thread (for instance, Johann Gambolputty was somewhat harsh), so I've been trying to amend that recently--it's just that this bizarre "clan = government" business was really unexpected.

Who said that we had to have names like that ["Four on a Spear"] at all? I was saying that *if* we are going down the road of having names describing what an individual does we are better off replacing the profession names since they are redundant.

Mmmm, I can see that being appropriate for those battle titles that truly did eclipse the profession name (like Hammerskull), but titles like "Slayer of Hundreds" would be far too vague for that. Besides, what if I'm looking for a Cook or Mason? Should a Legendary Gem Setter disappear from view because they happen to have killed 5 goblins?

The hero names are inessential, it is just that the arrangement I favor, owing to the lengthy surnames that it creates (and which is it's only drawback) requires we get rid of the existing heroic 'surname phrases' the game presently

The combat titles are indeed inessential--but so are the lengthy surnames. The current setup of 3 random name elements is already more than enough to all but ensure that no 2 dwarves in a fort will have the exact same name at the same time. The question now is about flavor, and style. I just think it's unbalanced, not to mention rather cumbersome, to give even the most menial Hauler a name that's as lengthy and ornate as the Queen's, or the fort's champion. I say we should give everyone really short names, and those who wish additional titles must earn that distinction.
     One factor that I think we'd all benefit from is the creation of "common" and "full" names. Common names would be limited to the base 3 name elements, while full names would have all the ancestry, titles, honorifics, etc. In item descriptions, each person depicted would have their full name listed once, all other mentions of them would be their common name.

But we're talking about dwarves, which were individually all created in the time before time and were not related to each other then, so theoretically populations could remain genetically distinct forever.

Those dwarves, even if by for needless Occam's Razor defying reason they were all created unrelated to eachother, are still going to create the 'everyone is related to everyone else' situation before very long.

Occam's Razor doesn't even enter into it. Being related requires common ancestry. If these dwarves were the first of their kind, how could they have ancestors? And if they were specifically created as siblings by the gods, how could they reproduce in violation of the taboo of incest?
     But yes, the various bloodlines in a civilization are pretty much guaranteed to intermingle sooner or later. But the same is true of humans, and we clearly have had NO difficulties in "othering" members of our own kind, even when they are visually similar, or even known to be closely related, to ourselves. For both dwarves and humans, it is very possible to consider yourself a member of one clan (and be likewise considered so by them), even though you're more closely related to an entirely different one.

In-game or real life, it's only a problem if it occurs so often that the sheer commonness of the name defeats the very purpose of having a name. . . . And when the number of surnames is VERY large, then bumping into someone with whom you share a last name, but still consider yourselves unrelated, that's not a problem--that's an amusing novelty.

Yes, the commoner the name the greater the problem.  The problem is that there will be very few surnames because the number of initial founders to our population is small compared to the total population we end up with.

Well, if you think there are too few (or too many) clan names, just tweak the New Clan Rate like you would any other worldgen variable. I think we can take it as a given that IF Toady is going to introduce clans (with their inherent names, loyalties, and resulting power struggles), THEN there will be ways to start new clans, and/or revitalize ones that have died out.

In a society where female dwarves take their mother's clan name, what's a girl with two dads supposed to do? But still, that's not a problem, because the answer is easy: She will do whatever she wants.

She cannot do 'what she wants' because she is a function of the computer program, thus she does only what we code her to do.

I think we can assume that all users of this forum already know that we are talking about a computer program. And I had thought it was safe to assume that users of this forum would know that it is the Suggestions forum, a place to post thoughts & ideas that are not currently the case, but that we wish would become so. Hence my expressed desire to see a dwarf in an "identity crisis" move in a direction that was not rigidly predictable, but rather be in tune with her own personality traits, or at least be random.

[SixOfSpades]

And now, the "clan = government" nonsense.

Clans are also 'extended family groups', which is historically correct; the claim is however meaningless since as everyone is objectively related to everyone else any group of people whatsoever can imagine that they are all blood-kin and they will never be wrong.

They will never be wrong? I assure you, if I were to walk up to a group of young black men and say, "Hey, what up, my brothers!" I would most DEFINITELY be wrong, and they would have no hesitation in telling me so.
Yes, it is technically correct that all humans are objectively related, but you know what? That's completely irrelevant. We are also objectively related to wombats, and pelicans, and sea urchins, but that doesn't mean we feel any sort of kinship with those animals. Clans are about genetics, yes--but even more so, clans are about family, the kind of family you can be considered, and welcomed into. The most common reason for being in a clan was to be born into it, agreed, but you could also marry into it, or be brought into the fold by otherwise forming a strong bond with a prominent clan member, or simply proving that you would be a valuable addition. It's the common sense of kinship that makes a clan, even more than being actual kin. Cultures all over the world have tales of youths rebelling against their families to start new families somewhere else, and/or as members of another people.
 

Yes clans are a form of government, that is historically correct.

Prove it. You imply that I have no better than a "wikipedia-level insight" on the meaning of the word "clan"--which happens to be false, I simply recognize that for all their faults, Wikipedia and Google have become the lingua franca and common currency of the Net. But if you want more, here's Merriam-Webster:

1 a:  a Celtic group especially in the Scottish Highlands comprising a number of households whose heads claim descent from a common ancestor
   b:  a group of people tracing descent from a common ancestor :  family
2 a:  a group united by a common interest or common characteristics

The University of Manitoba:

a group of people who claim unilineal descent from the same ancestor but who cannot specify all of the actual links.  The ancestor is genealogically so remote that he or she is often thought of as a mythical being, animal, or plant.  Clans usually consist of a number of related unilineages.   See totem.

and the Anthropology department of Oregon State University:

a noncorporate descent group in which genealogical links to a common ancestor are assumed but are not actually known.

These were just some of the first few Google hits, picked at random. All specify common ancestry. One mentions that clans need not be genetic, they can simply be a commonality of cause (such as a football team) or even just a shared interest (such as fans of that football team). NONE of them liken clans to government.

These are MY supporting documents; where are YOURS?


What I find most curious is that this affectation of yours seems to be a recent development. You were with this discussion almost from the beginning (you were the very first person to reply), yet you make no mention that we (and apparently, the entire world) have been misusing the word "clan" until Reply #36 of this thread. Paraphrased:

As I said earlier, clans are extended family groups that share a common name for a long time.
. . .

So clans are basically site governments or civ governments?

The word "government" doesn't even appear in this thread until then. Strangest of all, you actually seem to get the idea FROM me.

A clan is a political/territorial/economic/social unit, this element is the core of the matter and *not* the relatedness of it's members.

     The first part of that is true: a clan is a society that controls territory, and wields social & political power because of it. But it's a fallacy to think that this takes precedence over the element of family. With family, the various members have a very strong reason to work to benefit the group, they know & trust one another (usually from birth), they usually have a very literal homeland to defend, and most importantly, they have a shared name, an identity, a kinship to something greater than oneself. A clan without family is nothing but a gang.
     Now, here's where you're right: A clan that is large enough will attract non-related members. They don't even have to marry into the family; if they're both useful and loyal, they're in the clan. So for them, the clan is about power, and protection, and yes, government. But it's quite a leap to go from "clans practice government", which is true, to "clans are government", which is false. All parents govern over their children, that doesn't make them public officials.