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[Urist McAddict]

Well, i think that ppl are getting too worked over a game, as a dwarven fantasy life simulator, i don't think the whole "oh my god, that's so offensive" status is reasonable.

Dudes are killing eachother with axes'n'all, they really aren't into that whole discussion, it's a medieval fantasy, i think the society tags thing are a great idea, since i doubt that elfs, humans and dorfs would have standartized cultures, as in DF at the moment (and in general dorfish fantasy knowledge) Dwarvenkind does not diferentiate themselves by sex as humans do, they prize effort and deeds over gender.

Dwarven women that realized something great or was known for that should and would name a bloodline, so i think that legendary or accomplished dwarven individuals should start a bloodline. The hammerlord dorf that killed a squad of gobbos should name a bloodline, no matter if male or female. Dorfs seem (in general fantasy settings) to respect females very much, usually saying that dwarven women are fiercer them hell itself.

Returning to the topic, i think only Legends should start a Bloodline, maybe using the same Surname or adding a "descendant of Urist McUrist , the slayer of dragons" or "son of Urist McSmith, Legendary Smith/ Creator of AdamantineAxeofDoom".

That seems to be an easier task as new name trigger could just be applied to replicate on the family members (wife and offspring) to add the [BLOODLINE] tag, adding the legendary fact (for jobs/moods and slayer of [insert biggest killcount here]).

Dunno, what do you think?

[Silverwilt]

What if the names had a value based on the prestige of the family. Then FUSENAME could just keep 3 or 4 of the most prestigious names. The names gain or lose prestige based on famous or infamous dwarves with the same names.

And maybe some of them could be kept but not displayed; they would skip generations if there has been no champions with that name for a while, or if a prince from a fallen civilization is hiding.

[breadman]

There's no reason to make the modders repeat the PATRONYM part, as that's just a title for the actual argument being entered.

I thought the idea was any abitrary number of different possibilities and each appropriate percentages (or weighting!).  So it's simpler (and, incidentally, more readable...) than [MARRIAGENAME:40:40:0:0:0:10:10:0] where the values strictly relate to {PATRONYM, MATRONYM, PATMAT, MATPAT, HIGHSKILL, RANDOM, KEEP, FUSENAME}, and is already ungainly.

It's also easier to (at a later date) add in "...:RULERHONOURED:10", or something else that's new (in this case, go for a 10-percent/10-unit-weighted chance of plumping for the clan's lord's name in order to show/pretend loyalty, or something).  Otherwise you'd have to ensure you were zero-value buffered all the way up to where it can recognise the 9th parameter as being this new item, the tenth as the next one added after that, etc.

Exactly.  It avoids the need to specify all of them, and the need for an arbitrary ordering.  On the other hand, weights make sense, so the examples would become:

[MARRIAGENAME:PATRONYM:4:MATRONYM:4:RANDOM:1:KEEP:1]
[CHILDNAME:PATRONYM:2:MATRONYM:2:RANDOM:1]

As for FUSENAME, I'd have looked for parents called Alphabeta and Gammadelta to randomly go for Alphadelta or Gammabeta.  Maybe that's a different Fusename.

What he was talking about with FUSENAME was naming the characters "AlphaBetaGammaDelta"... and again, double that every generation (including a name that might well have some more "AlphaBeta" in there as distant cousins start marrying), and you'd wind up with a name with a thousand conjoined words within 10 generations.

I was looking for somewhere in between, and failed to fully elaborate.

Urist Alphabeta and Cerol Gammadelta get married.  With FUSENAME, I would expect them to call themselves Urist Alphabeta Gammadelta and Cerol Gammadelta Alphabeta.  Or perhaps they would use the same ordering, which highlights another potential problem when they need to choose whose to list first.

Whichever way they style themselves, their children would only get one surname, determined by the civ's CHILDNAME parameter, exactly as if the KEEP option had been used for MARRIAGENAME.

• PATRONYM: Alphabeta
• MATRONYM: Gammadelta
• PATMAT: Alphadelta
• MATPAT: Gammabeta
• HIGHSKILL: Either Alphabeta or Gammadelta, possibly even different for each child
• RANDOM: Epsilonzeta

I would suggest, however, that there might be something more like "GENDERNAME", where [MALE] castes are named after the male parent, and all other castes are named after the female parent (in the oddball case where you have genderless castes).  That would avoid messy caste-level definitions in the raws.

I considered this (that's what the BY_CASTE note was about), then rejected it as unnecessary because caste-level definitions can be moved outside the caste to become the default for all of them.  Now, I see that the castes are defined in the [CREATURE] tag, where for civ-level naming conventions we might want these to be in the [ENTITY] tag, so I'm no longer certain.

What if the names had a value based on the prestige of the family. Then FUSENAME could just keep 3 or 4 of the most prestigious names. The names gain or lose prestige based on famous or infamous dwarves with the same names.

Even with FUSENAME as described above, the idea of a PRESTIGE option for MARRIAGENAME and CHILDNAME makes sense.  It's kind of like HIGHSKILL, but looking beyond the parents to everyone with the name.  Sadly, it's also harder to program.

[dmatter]

To address those with the idea of the wife's name being carried on, I'm not sure why you'd want that. The sons inherit their father's name anywhere in civilized history (unless I'm unaware of a few instances), and his sons continue on the family heritage.

For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. As it's written in scripture.

I added this to Eternal voting

As someone who has studied cultural anthropology I find this . . . comment infuriating. First off, what do you define as 'civilized'? Is it only Western 'civilization?' If so, then we exclude ancient China and Japan along with many other 'civilizations.' Do we only include places that developed cities? If so, where do we draw the line? Is it any place that developed a permanent settlement or do these places have to reach a certain size to be considered 'civilized?'

Ultimately, I choose to abandon the term 'civilized' since it is both outdated and insulting. Instead I favor the term society and there is more than one way societies reckon lineage (probably quite a few actually). Just because a group never developed 'civilization' according to someone else's standards does not demean them. If it kept their group going for a 1000+ years who are we to look down on that? I mean, ultimately the nation-state has only been in existance for the past 150 years or so and I certainly don't see it being much better than any other system out there. In many ways I think it is actually worse!

There are plenty of examples of societies that use other systems of reckoning family lineage. During the early years of European colonization the Iroqouis reckoned their lineage matrilineally rather the patrilineally. IE traced it through the mother's line. In fact, we see a corollation between women working the land and matrilineal-ism.

Thus, in the world of Dwarf Fortress it actually makes more sense to me to track lineage by skill since both sexes work equally and property is owned by both parties (for now). I wouldn't mind seeing random generation though and having different civilizations reckon property and the like in all sorts of weird and twisted ways.

*calms down from nerd rage* So, what you can get from this is that I support the idea of Dwarf civs actually pulling how to reckon lineage based on randomness. As an anthro nerd I'd love to see Dwarf Fortress become a culture simulator so that sometimes we have societies (or civs) that can't possibly survive as they are at the start and see how they change over time to accomodate different cultural 'features' to actually form a lasting society.

[breadman]

So, what you can get from this is that I support the idea of Dwarf civs actually pulling how to reckon lineage based on randomness. As an anthro nerd I'd love to see Dwarf Fortress become a culture simulator so that sometimes we have societies (or civs) that can't possibly survive as they are at the start and see how they change over time to accomodate different cultural 'features' to actually form a lasting society.

So, as an anthro nerd, have you seen any naming conventions not represented above?  I haven't really covered the Spanish convention (almost PATMAT, except that the husband's name doesn't change, and the MAT part comes from the maternal grandfather), and triple-fused names happen occasionally, but is there something interesting and easy that we could include?  Are we right that patriarchal and matriarchal surname conventions are most common?

[NW_Kohaku]

I would also point out that comment by Richards is dated 2009, so responding as if the poster was still active in the thread may be off-base.

Beyond that, however, if you do have expertise in the area, and want to see the game become a culture simulator, then could you supply us with the sorts of guidelines for which different naming conventions actually arise?

In that way, we might be able to make this something more than just a hard weighted chance of one or the other, and we could actually have that simulation of culture changing with time in the game, and make them procedural changes that emerge through gameplay.

[Starver]

I would also point out that comment by Richards is dated 2009, so responding as if the poster was still active in the thread may be off-base.

I was wondering about that, when I first read the above.  He's also a recent contributor on page 3. within the last week.  I didn't understand it, but it may have been edited down, and I can't remember if I saw the pre-edit version.


My own feelings are that, like the game is capable of most conceivable geological/geographical possibilities (and, sometimes, some inconceivable ones), but isn't attempting to directly replicate the South Wales coal fields or the Grand Canyon, I would totally reject Richard's androcentric and (apparently!) scripture-based approach to 'normality', because...  well, that just happens to be what's happened in parts of the world familiar to Richards.  But matriarchal and other forms of society exist IRL, as mentioned.

And we're not replicating WASP (or other 'western') culture in any other way...  Ferdogsake, there are necromancers and titans and we all know that when good dwarves die they just go into a coffin (or the magma, or a pond, or some random area behind a newly built wall; and then haunt the place).

[Monk321654]

I feel I should spit my two Copper Coins.

One of the things I absolutely LOVE about Dwarf Fortress is that silly little things like Gender mean (Almost) Nothing.
Take tht gift away... I don't think I could stand to play anymore...

[NW_Kohaku]

I feel I should spit my two Copper Coins.

One of the things I absolutely LOVE about Dwarf Fortress is that silly little things like Gender mean (Almost) Nothing.
Take tht gift away... I don't think I could stand to play anymore...

And how, exactly, does having children named after parents change this in any dramatic way?

If "flip a coin, heads, the child (regardless of gender) is named after the father, and tails, it's named after the mother" is the sole mechanic for determining names, or if the children are named after their most famous ancestor, then how does this deviate from "gender means almost nothing"?

[Starver]

And how, exactly, does having children named after parents change this in any dramatic way?

If I may (once again) put down what I had already read into a message...

What Monk was saying, I think, is that any given dwarf in DF can be a fighter, a farmer, a ruler or a ranger.  They can wear skirts, kilts, trousery-type clothing or nothing of the kind at all.  There's absolutely no gender differences worth a darn, when it comes to most aspects of dwarven life.

OTOH, there's a matter that only the females give birth, and that females don't have beards (and I think all these things can be changed in the raws, and thus it remains plastic, even if you can only set "females" to grow beards and "males" not to, thus making it semantics only when the bearded ones give birth and the unbearded ones do not).  Also, Female 'kings' are named as queens, but that's just more semantics, watching the fantasy world through human-tinted spectacles, and "Kings" and "Queens" could be as easily called "Odds" and "Bodds".  (Or "Bodds" and "Odds"!)

So, I think Monk was saying that this was a good situation, and that 'forcing' a patronymical bloodline naming system would be a step in a contrary direction.  (For Monk.  I would not care to go on to explain Richards' own thoughts.)


I could be wrong about that.

[Monk321654]

Nope.
You hit that target like a Bull Moose.
Thanks for the explaination.
And Kohaku, a coin flip would make no difference to me.

[Nonsequitorian]

If it is just a coin flip, I think it should stay that way for the entire family. If a child takes the name from his dear ol' mum, his child should too, and that child's child, and then that child's child's child, so that there is some continuity.

[NW_Kohaku]

If it is just a coin flip, I think it should stay that way for the entire family. If a child takes the name from his dear ol' mum, his child should too, and that child's child, and then that child's child's child, so that there is some continuity.

But marriages are unions of two families.  What happens when one family tradition runs into another?


Also, breadman, since your idea seems to be distinct enough from the original idea in the thread that there is some confusion about what idea is getting talked about, there could be a good case for the idea just being different enough to warrant an entirely new thread, so that it's clear which idea everyone is reacting to.

[SuicideJunkie]

OTOH, there's a matter that only the females give birth, and that females don't have beards (and I think all these things can be changed in the raws, and thus it remains plastic, even if you can only set "females" to grow beards and "males" not to, thus making it semantics only when the bearded ones give birth and the unbearded ones do not).

Huh, that's odd.  I had to load up my game to double check that statement.

Shouldn't beardless dwarves be a bug?

[NW_Kohaku]

Huh, that's odd.  I had to load up my game to double check that statement.

Shouldn't beardless dwarves be a bug?

Ever since dwarves got beards in 0.31.01, female dwarves did not have beards.  Toady included the token that you could add to make female dwarves have beards, but by default, they do not.