Name That Toon!

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Xolotl
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Name That Toon!

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Ever wonder how naming conventions work in other languages? I know the conventions of a few and I'm posting this here with the hopes that others will post for languages they know too!
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Xolotl
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Re: Name That Toon!

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Spanish

While each Spanish-speaking country will have slightly different customs, most use the following traditions.

Most people have a given name, a paternal surname, and a maternal surname. Middle names aren't all that common. For Example: Julio Gomez Cruz or Soledad Mora Gonzalez.

When a couple get married, the wife generally doesn't change her name. The kids inherit both paternal surnames. In the two examples above, the children would be Mario Gomez Mora and Isabel Gomez Mora.

Sometimes, the wife will drop her maternal surname and take the husband's paternal surname and add de before it. Soledad becomes Soledad Mora de Gomez.

Sometimes a person gets a compound name, these are still not considered middle names and both names should be used. Juan Miguel, Jose Maria, Juana Dolores, Mercedes Jose. It's not at all common to have the second name be opposite sex, especially if the second name is Jose or Maria.

Some people also include their saint name, though not all people do this. In some traditions, giving your child an opposite sex saint name is considered to give extra protection. Saint names come after the given name(s). Jose Maria Francisco Gomez Mora. Mercedes Ignacio Gomez de Hernandez.
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Xolotl
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Re: Name That Toon!

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Russian

Russian names contain three parts: given name, patronymic, and surname.

Given names are pretty straightforward, though it should be noted that most Russians don't give their children unusual, exotic, or foreign names. Generally, female names end in -a or -ya, though not always.

Patronymics are inherited from your father. That are formed by taking his name and adding either -evich or -ovich (there's a complicated grammatical rule about which) for boys and -evna or -ovna for girls. So Ivan's kids would get Ivanovich and Ivanovna and Andrei's would get Andreevich and Andreevna. There are some exceptions to this rule, but mostly for names that aren't normally used these days. The one you take need to worry about is Ilya which becomes Ilyich/Ilyinichna. When in doubt, search the internet for "name" patronymic and it should pop up!

Surnames, like patronymics, are slightly different depending on gender (Russian is very much binary). Women generally keep their surname when they marry. There are three basic types of surnames: paternal, descriptive, and ending in "n".

Paternal surnames are derived from names (and sometimes places or even descriptions) and end in either -ev/eva or -ov/ova. For example: Ivanov/Ivanova, Andreev/Andreevna.

Description surnames end in either -y (sometimes spelled with a i or a iy)/aya or -oy/aya. Belsky/Belskaya, Tolstoy/Tolstaya.

Some Russian surnames end with an "n" and while I'm sure there's something more to this, I don't know the deeper grammar on this one. Pushkin/Pushkina.

Ukrainian names are also common in Russia and some end with -o or -uk and do not change depending on gender. Patrenko, Kostyuk.

Nicknames in Russian can be very complicated. Many names have several and sometimes nicknames can be even longer than the base name! A few examples: Aleksandr/Aleksandra - Sasha, Mikhail/Mikhaila - Misha, Dmitri - Dima, Olga - Olya, Svetlana - Sveta, Ilya - Ilyusha/Ilyushenka. I have good luck searching "name" nicknames.
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Xolotl
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Re: Name That Toon!

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Icelandic

In Iceland, surnames aren't extremely common. Instead, you use a patronym based on your father. Let's take the case of Oskar Ragnarsson and Helga Stefansdottir, a married couple. We can learn from this that Oskar's father is named Ragnar and Helga's is named Stefan. When they gave children, they will have the surname Oskarsson and Oskarsdottir. Women don't change their name upon marriage.
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Xolotl
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Re: Name That Toon!

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Chinese

Chinese naming conventions can get complex and beyond the scope of this post. That said, in modern days they tend to follow a simple pattern: surname then given name.

Surnames in Chinese tend to be single syllables and there are about one hundred common names (though Li, Zhang, and Wang are especially common). There are some instances of two-syllable surnames in Chinese, but they aren't common and many are technically foreign.

Given names tend towards two syllables, though historically monosyllabic names were common and are undergoing a new renaissance. There aren't hard and fast rules about which names are masculine and which are feminine, though masculine names tend to reflect strength and solidity whereas feminine names tend to reflect beauty or floral motifs. Female names also frequently have the word Xiao (small) in them, or repeat the same word for both syllables, Meimei, but this can sometimes happen in male names too (such as Yoyo Ma).

There are several other naming traditions that have varying degrees of popularity in different regions. One common one is using one character in all the (usually male) descendents' given names. Another common one is using a specific character for each child of a given generation. In general, children are not named after living family members or famous people, though the latter does happen due to the somewhat limited amount of common given names.

Transcribing Chinese names can be tricky. The official stylization from Mainland China is to put the surname first and then combine the given name into one name. Ma Yoyo, Zhang Xiaomei. This convention is not universal in other Chinese-speaking countries. It's also common to see the given name hyphenated Ma Yo-Yo, Zhang Xiao-Mei. In some renditions all three syllables are separated: Ma Yo Yo, Zhang Xiao Mei.

Most Chinese immigrants change their names to put the surname at the end of their names when they leave China: Yoyo Ma, Xiaomei Zhang. Many also adopt an English name, which can end up being their legal name or just a preferred name.
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