Baxil (baxil) wrote,
Baxil
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Ask the Advice Dragon: The naming of names

I still get a fair amount of feedback on the Draconity FAQ (long overdue for an update, though I think it's handled the passage of time well). And of the questions I get asked, one pops up time and time and time again:

How do I find my dragon name?

I keep re-answering this to people individually via e-mail; I can't find my notes from the last few times I wrote up suggestions, so I'm going to copy and paste my latest answer here as notes-to-self for the eventual FAQ update.

If you have additional comments/questions/suggestions on the topic, or on the answer I gave, feel free to add them in comments. N.b.: Pretty much all of this applies to any search for a "true" name, draconic or otherwise.

--

It's always hard to know how to offer suggestions for something so personal, but I'll pass on a few methods that have had good results for other dragons:
  • First of all, keep your ears (and your heart) open. If a particular name is lurking in your subconscious, when you hear it, it'll just feel right.
  • Someone might tell it to you in a dream, or a magically inclined friend might suggest it to you. If it resonates, there you go. (And if this works out for you, consider yourself lucky. :))
  • Sometimes playing with random letters can help jar your memory. Sit down with some Scrabble tiles, or an Ouija board, or a random syllable generator such as Yould (http://ygingras.net/yould). The point isn't to sit down and come up with The Real Thing on the first pass; the point is to find little bits and snatches of it that leap out at you, then play around with combining them, rolling sounds through your mind, giving your brain space to process it all and let it kick back an answer at its leisure.
  • Also, don't be afraid to take a "temporary" name -- an Internet handle or a descriptive word or somesuch -- while you're waiting for inspiration to strike on the One True Dragon Name. Names are a matter of identity, and just having *something* to call yourself while you're looking for "the real thing" may be enough to settle you into your own skin (as it were) and let you identify with your dragon self.

    Besides, sometimes names have a power all their own, and end up choosing *you* - and something you picked as a temporary handle might end up having enough deeper meaning that you decide to stick with it!
Tags: ask me a question, draconity, magic
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