Royce's Random Thoughts

Okay, so I'm moving forward with Altered Trajectory, until I either get inspriration or hit myself hard enough with a hammer to get the plot straightened out for Andrea's Story or Black Hearts. Unfortuately, I've reached a point in the story where I'm going to have to introduce a few more Vulpine characters and I'm getting tired of recycling names I've used before. So I'm reaching out to the intrawebs to get help. Help me by coming up with a name and if I like it, I'll use it in the story.

Vulpine Naming Conventions

Going by what I've observed reading Terinu, Vulpine names roughly follow Western patterns of Personal Name followed by Family Name.

Family Name

Family Names are generally descriptive, either of a physical trait or a traditional job. Canon examples include Brushtail, Softpaw, Whitebrow and Fieldmaster. One assumption with these names is that We the Readers are reading the translation of the Vulpine family name, into a form comprehensible to humans. This becomes important when we get to personal names.


Personal Names

Personal Names are slightly trickier. Going by our two primary Vulpine characters in the comic, Ru Ofanius and Melika, what we're reading is a phonetic recording of their "true" names. But, especially with Ru Ofanius' name, there appears to be tradition adapting their personal names into a format presumably more pronoucable to humans when they're in mixed company. So for Ru Ofanius we get "Rufus", Melika is shortened to "Mel" and so on. The one canon exception is Rufus' lawyer, who goes by the name "Regina". This would suggest a little bit of word borrowing between Vulpine and English potentially.


Canon Examples

Ru Ofanius "Rufus" Brushtail
Bethany "Beth" Brushtail
Melika "Mel" Softpaw
Regina Fieldmaster


Non-Canon Examples

Marturari "Marty" Greycoat
Haz Elin "Hazel" Swiftfoot
Samaneus "Sam" Sharpears

So, if you've got an idea for a new Vulpine name, add it in a reply below!