NK - How I got my name?

[Darin K. Herndon]

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

When I started participating in the SCA, it was through fighter practice.
My first use of a name in the SCA came through fighting in a tourney.  I
had been practicing for maybe five months when I went to Namron
Protectorate and fought in my first tourney.  It had not even occured to me
until I got in line to sign up for the list that I would need a name.  (In
hindsight, I should have guessed that they sign you up with your SCA name
but the thought had never crossed by mind since I had never been to a
tourney before.)

As a sidenote (but an important one), our "Shire" of Northkeep was making
noises at the time about becoming a Barony.  It seems that there was this
recurring rumor that people from Northkeep (way in the far northeast corner
of the kingdom) didn't travel.  Northkeepers traveled but we didn't hang
banners and flags a lot.  Disabusing this rumor became something of a goal
for the heavy fighters.  So several of the fighters stenciled "Hi I am from
Northkeep" on their shields and helms.  It turned out though that several
of the stencil jobs had the beginning "Hi I am..." a little too close
together.

So, by the time I made it to the front of the line, my first SCA name
became "Hiiam from Northkeep".  I was known throughout the realm for my
generosity in loaning all of those shields and helms to my friends.  (I
added that last part.  Few outside of Northkeep noticed the connection.)

I knew that "Hiiam" would not be a permanent name but it worked for a
while.  While I was seeking a better name which was more authentic and
registerable, I had a name floating around in the back of my head.  The
name was "Aramath".  (For those who are wondering, yes, that was the name
of a blue dragon from a D&D campaign I ran.  It is also a name of a ranger
from JRR Tolkien's "Unfinished Tales", I believe, though I found that out
later.)  For the record, I have never found Aramath to be a period name in
any culture.

At Barnes and Noble one night, I ran across a French-English dictionary.
It also did not have "Aramath" as an entry; but it did have "Amaranthe".
Amaranthe is the french name for the love-lies-bleeding plant, also known
as Amaranthus Caudatis.  Now the problem was: Could I name myself after a
plant?  I wanted "Amaranthe" as a first name.  I had even tracked down a
saint who was martyred in the third century, in France, named "Amaranthus"
or "Amarandus" interchangeably.  I decided to be from somewhere for a last
name and I liked the town named "St. Etienne".  Etienne is a french form of
Stephen and Stephen was my late father's middle name (real life, not SCA);
I liked the connection.  So, I was trying to document "Amaranthe de St.
Etienne".

While I had the documentation for the one saint, that was the only
reference I could find (other than Tolkien which doesn't count) for the
type of first name I wanted.  And saints, if they were priests, frequently
took new names after becoming priests; the "Amaranthus" could be an assumed
priestly name and not one for use by normal people.  I could not reliably
document Amaranthe as a likely first name.  After a heraldic commenting
session one Saturday, I was visiting with HL Livia who made the suggestion
of swapping the names into "Etienne de St. Amaranthe".  I told her that I
had found no places in France (I was stuck with the French idea now) named
after that particular plant.  She suggested that I make up a place named
after the saint.  "Make up a place...?!"

Turns out that SCA registration practices allow for made up place names so
long as the structure of the place name matches a documentable practice for
how a culture named places.  In my case, the French have named dozens of
places from villages to full cities after saints (Mont St. Michel, St.
Etienne, etc.).  So, I made up a place named after the documented saint
Amaranthus (or Amaranthe in French rather than Latin) and I flipped the
name components.  The college of heralds dropped the final "e" in the
registration process because that feminized the name (and it was a male
saint) and so...

I remain,
Seigneur Etienne de St. Amaranth