CR - Name and Armory Ramblings

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

Reginlief wrote:
> if they would use [wolf] in a name, why not on armory?

Simply because they didn't, much.  "Wolf"-based prothemes
and deuterothemes were rather common in Germanic languages,
as you noted, but that doesn't carry over into armory.
Eagles were moderately common in armory, but people weren't
being named Eagle much at all.

Besides, the characteristic that makes something a name
is that it has become divorced from its meaning -- it's being
used to refer to people without concern about whether it's an
accurate descriptor.  I chose Daniel not because I thought
God had judged me, but because I liked the sound.
When I meet someone named Margaret, I don't think she's
a pearl, either metaphorically or literally.
A lot of people in Germanic cultures were named with themes
used by their parents.  All of AEthelstan's children
might have names starting with AEthel-, say.  Thus, if Wolf
was popular way in the past, that popularity might carry into
the future even if wolves (the beasts) lose popularity.

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel.   Reply to tmcd at crl.com; if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com
is work account.  tmcd at tmcd.austin.tx.us ... is wrong tool.  Never use this.
============================================================================
Go to http://www.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.