What do you think of...

[clarentine]

Eponymic?

Does that say to you, reader, that the person whose name contains an eponymic is related, in some fashion other than blood, to the person whose name he bears?

To follow my earlier example: Abel Johnsha, where John stands in some guardian relationship to Abel other than parentage--does that work for you? If a character was to call infant Abel "Abel Paulson" and was corrected that the child was "Abel Johnsha," would you blink over the character noting the use of the eponymic as stating that John has taken guardianship or responsibility for the infant Abel?

(I still think it unlikely I'm the first person to need to label this relationship, and probably there's some anthro or linguistics major out there laughing at me. If you're laughing, tell me what the right word is!)

Comments

[clarentine]

So what tripped you was the move from the familiar ("Paulson") to the unfamiliar ("Johnsha")? Maybe the familiar is what I need to change, to remove the set-up for expectations to go unmet.

As I recall, the Navajo are neither matrilineal nor patrilineal. Is that your understanding as well? If so, I need to learn more about their naming conventions, I suspect.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Uhm... there's a word for it, but as I recall the Navajo track both, and have ways to designate which one they're talking about. I don't know the precise wording but I think there's an order to it. Something like you're "from" your father's clan and "of" your mother's clan, and you list maternal first followed by paternal, something like that.

What tripped me was that I don't have a cultural automatic to expect a surname change when a child is fostered. If the child is adopted, I expect a surname change to match the new guardian/parent surname, but not in a patronymic sense. So it's a double-whammy, I think: I'm thrown by the patronymic element, and by the change itself in the absence of a stated specific, long-term, change in parenthood (as opposed to "taking in this child for a little while").

It also depends on the adoption situation, too. I've had several friends who were orphaned & raised by long-time family friends or by distant family, and all of them kept their original surname -- which is how the topic invariably came up: why is your name different? The adopted kids I've known took their adoptive parents' surname as part of becoming part of the family.

Hrm. Maybe if you hyphenated the surname pattern, just to offset the suffix so it's clearly an additive, or mutable to some degree?

[clarentine]

Uhm... there's a word for it, but as I recall the Navajo track both, and have ways to designate which one they're talking about.

::points and bounces::

There--that there is what I'm talking about, that word you don't have either.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Teknonymy is the practice of referring to parents by the names of their children. It is used in the Korean language as well as in the Arab world and West Africa.

From Iceland (which still uses patronymics): In cases where two people in the same social circle bear the same first name and the same father's name, they may be socially distinguished by their paternal grandfather's name. E.g. Jón Þórsson Bjarnarsonar (Jón, son of Þór, son of Bjarni) and Jón Þórsson Hallssonar (Jón, son of Þór, son of Hallur). In that case, it's another add-on, add-on, and if you just find a version of "foster" that makes you happy, maybe that would work -- plus your readers wouldn't have to struggle over "paul+son" but would see Abel Paulson becoming Abel Paulson Johnsha, and later maybe feel like they've scored an easter egg when they realize Dad's name is Paul and foster-Dad's name is John and go, hmmm, I bet that's one of them funky Scandinavian naming things!

Something to keep in mind about using patronymics or matronymics -- that surname is NOT a surname. I went back and forth over whether to specify that in the draft you read, since technically if the characters are using true patronymics, then, say, Ranulf Sorensson wouldn't be called Mr Sorensson, but simply Mr Ranulf. It's one thing to say, "Are you Joe's kid?" and another to be formally addressed as "child of Mr. Joe" which... just sounds wierd. Heh.

(meant to add: still looking for the info on Navajo naming systems, but I did find this and this, which may or may not be helpful. I'm not even sure what the second one really is, but I bookmarked it as a jumping-off place when trying to figure out naming conventions myself, as well.