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Names & Linguistic Naming Patterns

Turtle91 said:
Russian for bear is medved.
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True. And, pleasingly, you can trace an etymology of "leads [you] to honey" in that word. But whenever the bear needs a name, such as in a fairy tale, it's always Misha (or MIshka if you want to really emphasise your affectionate attitude). In a similar way, in the UK, people used to talk about Jenny Wren, or Reynard the fox.
 
Krepostnoi said:
I confess this taboo is new to me - could you expand?
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Basically the supposition is that in early Indo-European cultures, bears were seen as sufficiently dangerous that they took on a supernatural aspect, and that even saying the original word for 'bear' might summon one, so the words became replaced with euphemisms in different languages, Voldemort-style.

There's some more info here: it's all a bit speculative, and some languages do maintain words related to the PIE root (like ours in French or arktos in Greek)

Both Germanic, that is German and Old Norse, forms were presumably *berô in Proto-Germanic and was derived from *bʰer meaning “brown” in Proto-Indo-European (though some have also suggested it comes from *ǵʰwer- or “wild animal”) ...
[...]Other supposed circumventions of the word for ‘bear’ can be seen in the Lativian word ‘lācis’ possibly originally meaning “hairy one” or “shaggy fur” and the Old Irish word ‘math’ meaning the “good one”.
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Bonus fact, not included on this page: 'Beowulf' may be a kenning meaning 'bear' - 'Bee-wolf'.

EDIT: and to prove there really is an XKCD for everything:

1705030694393.png
 
In linguistics, it's called Avoidance Language.
Some words are considered indelicate, inappropriate in some situations or even taboo. So great pains are taken to use terms that are appropriate yet not the actual 'taboo' word.
In some Indo-Chinese societies, it's inappropriate for a bride-to-be to use their prospective in-laws names until wedded. Before the proposal they might be Mrs Smith or Susan; after the proposal, it's 'Mother of my intended'; after the wedding it's 'mother' or 'Susan'. This developed out of respect.
 
Stormkhan said:
In linguistics, it's called Avoidance Language.
Some words are considered indelicate, inappropriate in some situations or even taboo. So great pains are taken to use terms that are appropriate yet not the actual 'taboo' word.
In some Indo-Chinese societies, it's inappropriate for a bride-to-be to use their prospective in-laws names until wedded. Before the proposal they might be Mrs Smith or Susan; after the proposal, it's 'Mother of my intended'; after the wedding it's 'mother' or 'Susan'. This developed out of respect.
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In south Asian culture it's similar - it's considered blunt to just use a name without a kinship term, and for some relations even that can be a bit too impolite.

Kinship titles are mostly used eg., in Nepal: Didi (elder sister) for any female older than you by a few years, Aunty for any older female friend or relation, Mama (uncle) or Maiju (aunt), Buah-ji (respected father) or Amah-ji for (respected mother) an elderly man or woman.

My Asian family think I'm cute and very polite as I very rarely use my husband's first name and call him "Surname-ji" (lit. respected Mr Surname).

I wonder if there's a spin-off thread about naming conventions and cultures in this diversion? Shall I suggest it?
 
AnonyJ said:
Kinship titles are mostly used eg., in Nepal: Didi (elder sister) for any female older than you by a few years, Aunty for any older female friend or relation, Mama (uncle) or Maiju (aunt), Buah-ji (respected father) or Amah-ji for (respected mother) an elderly man or woman.

My Asian family think I'm cute and very polite as I very rarely use my husband's first name and call him "Surname-ji" (lit. respected Mr Surname).
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It's the same in Chinese and Korean (different words, of course) but also, it turns out, in Turkish, according to a Turkish colleague of mine.

Yes, a new thread would be a good idea.
 
AnonyJ said:
Kinship titles are mostly used eg., in Nepal: Didi (elder sister) for any female older than you by a few years, Aunty for any older female friend or relation, Mama (uncle) or Maiju (aunt), Buah-ji (respected father) or Amah-ji for (respected mother) an elderly man or woman.

My Asian family think I'm cute and very polite as I very rarely use my husband's first name and call him "Surname-ji" (lit. respected Mr Surname).

I wonder if there's a spin-off thread about naming conventions and cultures in this diversion? Shall I suggest it?
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Didi is short for Devi Dasi. Devi means a female in a superior type of way and Dasi is the feminine form of Dasa, both of which mean 'servant of'.

Both those terms, Devi Dasi and Dasa, were originally meant for both male and female who had accepted a Guru and the Guru had given them a spiritual name at initiation. For a female, for example, she maybe given the name Radha so she would become Radha Devi Dasi. So her name would mean that Radha is her superior and she is the servant of Radha. In todays society she'd be know as Radha Didi. Now Didi has come to just mean female who is older. Mataji was originally the term for an older female if a woman, Mataji meaning mother, and a male would call all females over 16 or 18 Mataji on the principle that he sees all women as his mother and not a sexual object in any type of way
 
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Thinking about it, the Americans use honorifics or job titles differently from the UK.
For instance, we might have "Justice Once" in formal usage but the US has "Judge Once" all the time.
Gordon Ramsay (UK) is Mr Ramsay or Gordon (familiar), while Gordon Ramsay is Chef Ramsay all the time.
Doctor is used by both countries as a title or honorific.
 
James_H said:
Basically the supposition is that in early Indo-European cultures, bears were seen as sufficiently dangerous that they took on a supernatural aspect, and that even saying the original word for 'bear' might summon one, so the words became replaced with euphemisms in different languages, Voldemort-style.

There's some more info here: it's all a bit speculative, and some languages do maintain words related to the PIE root (like ours in French or arktos in Greek)



Bonus fact, not included on this page: 'Beowulf' may be a kenning meaning 'bear' - 'Bee-wolf'.

EDIT: and to prove there really is an XKCD for everything:

View attachment 72868
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"Arth" pronounced as an English-speaker would do so phonetically is Welsh for bear.
 
kesavaross said:
Didi is short for Devi Dasi. Devi means a female in a superior type of way and Dasi is the feminine form of Dasa, both of which mean 'servant of'.

Both those terms, Devi Dasi and Dasa, were originally meant for both male and female who had accepted a Guru and the Guru had given them a spiritual name at initiation. For a female, for example, she maybe given the name Radha so she would become Radha Devi Dasi. So her name would mean that Radha is her superior and she is the servant of Radha. In todays society she'd be know as Radha Didi. Now Didi has come to just mean female who is older. Mataji was originally the term for an older female if a woman, Mataji meaning mother, and a male would call all females over 16 or 18 Mataji on the principle that he sees all women as his mother and not a sexual object in any type of way
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I love the title mataji :)

One thing I've found very confusing is the south Asian tradition of giving different names for someone we would, in Britain, call brother-in-law or sister-in-law, nephew or niece.

In Nepal the wife of a younger brother (bhai) whether a blood brother or a friend called bhai is referred to as bhauju, whilst spouses of siblings/in-law siblings all have different titles depending on whether they are males or females or junior or senior: binaju, sali, joiye, amaju. I'm always getting them mixed up but my folks make allowances for me.
 
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One thing I'm rather curious about - middle names!

It seems to be a relatively new thing amongst the common old British working classes - or was it just an immediate post WWII thing that many children weren't given middle names?

My mother was the only one of her 6 siblings (all born 1940s & 50s) to have a middle name*. Most of her friends also had only one Christian name, including her oldest friend, my Godmother. However they all gave their children two or more names, as do their grandchildren. It now seems really unusual not to have a middle name, when just a generation or two ago it wasn't universal!

* She was the 5th of 6, and the one they nearly lost before/at birth, the only one born in hospital because of the complications. She was given my great-grandmother's name L as a middle name. It's started a wee family tradition in that I was given it, and so was my niece.
 
AnonyJ said:
I love the title mataji :)

One thing I've found very confusing is the south Asian tradition of giving different names for someone we would, in Britain, call brother-in-law or sister-in-law, nephew or niece.

In Nepal the wife of a younger brother (bhai) whether a blood brother or a friend called bhai is referred to as bhauju, whilst spouses of siblings/in-law siblings all have different titles depending on whether they are males or females or junior or senior: binaju, sali, joiye, amaju. I'm always getting them mixed up but my folks make allowances for me.
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I visited India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc, often when I was a Hare Krsna. I often got lost in the correct terms for family members when visiting people so I stuck to prabhu, for males around my age, and prabhuji for males older than me, the 'ji' bit meaning a superior, or for a very old men, babaji. A babaji being one who understands sastra, or scripture, through bajan, or holy songs which is the highest form of realisation of sastra, scripture. It seemed to go down ok.

For all females I just called them all mataji which seemed to be fine as well. Mata meaning mother.
 
AnonyJ said:
One thing I'm rather curious about - middle names!

It seems to be a relatively new thing amongst the common old British working classes - or was it just an immediate post WWII thing that many children weren't given middle names?

My mother was the only one of her 6 siblings (all born 1940s & 50s) to have a middle name*. Most of her friends also had only one Christian name, including her oldest friend, my Godmother. However they all gave their children two or more names, as do their grandchildren. It now seems really unusual not to have a middle name, when just a generation or two ago it wasn't universal!

* She was the 5th of 6, and the one they nearly lost before/at birth, the only one born in hospital because of the complications. She was given my great-grandmother's name L as a middle name. It's started a wee family tradition in that I was given it, and so was my niece.
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I was born in 1957 and as far as I remember, all the kids my age had middle names. I loathed mine.
 
I'm a few years older and have two middle names. My mother, born in the early 1930s, has two. My grandfather was born in 1906 and had one.
My father and his brother (both late1920s) each had a middle name.
I knew someone who was born near the end of the 19th century who had a middle name.

Perhaps it wasn't so rare but they just didn't use them.

They were all 'working class', the older ones were mostly farm workers.
 
AnonyJ said:
It seems to be a relatively new thing amongst the common old British working classes - or was it just an immediate post WWII thing that many children weren't given middle names?
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The Scots grands had 2 given names each.

The posh English grands had 3!

All born between 1900 and 1910 I think...
 
AnonyJ said:
One thing I'm rather curious about - middle names!

It seems to be a relatively new thing amongst the common old British working classes - or was it just an immediate post WWII thing that many children weren't given middle names?

My mother was the only one of her 6 siblings (all born 1940s & 50s) to have a middle name*. Most of her friends also had only one Christian name, including her oldest friend, my Godmother. However they all gave their children two or more names, as do their grandchildren. It now seems really unusual not to have a middle name, when just a generation or two ago it wasn't universal!

* She was the 5th of 6, and the one they nearly lost before/at birth, the only one born in hospital because of the complications. She was given my great-grandmother's name L as a middle name. It's started a wee family tradition in that I was given it, and so was my niece.
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Middle names in my family are a heritage thing. Boys always have Charles or Henry (Henri) as a reflection of our alleged descent from the Bonnie Prince. I've also got John because given the age of my parents when I was born they didn't expect another child. But 5 years later they did have another one, very late for those days, and he got John as his first name. I don't use the middle names, I use the US convention and call myself Peter J. in formal circumstances.
 
Both my parents (born 1928 and 1931) had middle names, my mum actually had two. My paternal grandfather (born 1899) had one, as did my maternal grandmother (born 1900). Very different backgrounds, very different classes, so I think it might be purely down to personal choice.

My kids all have two middle names. I and my brother have one middle name. Each, I mean, we don't have to share. That would be odd.
 
I have had endless hours of fun explaining the differences between Anglophone middle names and Russian patronymics: e.g. Vladimir Ilich is "Vladimir, son of Ilya", while Raisa Ilinichna would be "Raisa, daughter of Ilya". When Russian speakers ask me if English middle names also relate to the father's name in this way, I say "Actually, no. For example, my brother's middle name is Richard, while our father's name is Robert." "I see," they say. "So what's your middle name?". At which point I have to mumble "Robert", and the whole cycle starts again.

To pick up on an earlier strand in this thread, a common middle name in my paternal line is Arthur. Any link to PIE words for "bear"?
 
My grandparents were all solid British working class born in the early 20th century - maternal grandfather had two middle names, maternal grandmother had one (which she actually went by rather than her given first name), paternal grandfather had one and paternal grandmother - not sure actually. I think she had one.

However, the In House GP (born late 60s) does not have a middle name where his older brother (2 years' difference) has one. I think it really does come down to personal preferences. After all, my boys both have one middle name each but the Teenager has two. And all of them have a family name in there somewhere - in fact, both of Son No 1's are family monikers.
 
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