NK - The Philosophical Aspects of Free Time

Nathan W. Jones njones at ix.netcom.com
Fri Aug 6 18:53:07 PDT 1999


Greetings Susan of Northkeep,

>I don't think I have met Marc
>yet, but when I do I will think Dairy Maid.  

*chuckle*  Oh please don't!  DAng, and I can't even claim not to be
responsible.  (But for the record, I used Diary, not Dairy.  He 
came up with that improvement himself.  *grin*


>This hits my quest to find a
>name.  I do want something I will be able to spell and to even 
>answer to.  I think I am leaning more toward the Susan the _____ 
>type, just so I will know it is me.  I am rather absentminded, 
>so that will help.  All we have come up
>with thus far is Susan the Curious.

Susan the [fill in the blank] is a perfectly period naming practice, BTW.
(the Heralds call it some funny name, but they still let us register
them.)  The question is, what do fill in the blank with.

Here is my first question, and I apologize if you have mentioned it before,
but I do have the attention span of a gnat at time.  How long
have you been playing in the SCA?  My general rule is not to rush 
into giving yourself a name.  You might just want to be Susan of Northkeep
for a while (months even) until you find a name that you just simply love
and wouldn't mind being called for the rest of your SCA career...or until
you decide to change it again.  But be warned, changing names is easier 
said than done.  The first time is somewhat easy, the later name changes
harder.  (Unless you don't mind people always forgetting what your 
current name might be.)

So...take some time.

Also, consider the culture that you might want to be from.  If you
were interested in Celtic, Norse, French, Italian, you might want to
investigate what "Susan the [fill in the blank]" might sound like 
in those other languages.  Might be very pretty and something you'd like.


>If people have time, I would love stories of how you chose your names and
>personas and which came first period or name.

Once upon a time when I was a clueless newbie, my friends decided that
Nathan of Bjornsborg just wouldn't work anymore.  I'd been in for three-
six-ish months.(Okay, I don't remember exactly how long I'd been playing, 
but it was betwenn three and six months)  

So, my friend Mellisande decided that she was tired of her
English/SCottish/Whatever personna and was going to turn Italian.  She
had decided to call herself Dianora Lisabetta Vittoria di Cellini, and
thought it would be a great thing if all her friends would turn Italian
and be Late Period (because Bjornsorg was a horrid place filled with tons
of Early Period Celts and Norsemen). *chuckle*

Not knowing any better, and not having any better ideas about a name or
personna, I agreed to play along.  I still needed a first name though.
So, I procrastinated, and procrastinated, and finally they nagged me
again about it while we were grocery shopping for an event.  I just
mouthed off, "Fine, just call me Giovanni Antonio...how's that?  I'll come
up with something better later."

Well, later never came, and I decided that I really liked the clothes,
history, and politics of Florence around 1380-1425.  And the name stuck.

And, because I followed the heraldic rule "if you don't use it, why 
register it", I dropped "Antonio" when I decided to register my name
and arms.  

And that's how it all began, lo those many years ago.  *sob*

Gio.

p.s.  Oh, and I wanted to be called Gianni, cus it sounds like "Jonny"
if you say it fast with a Texas accent.  But that didn't happen either.
Gio
Northkeep
Ansteorra



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