Aeron Damphair's name

[Sjbookworm]

Hi everyone. I just thought of something. Wouldn't the name "Aeron" be more suited to a Targaryen than a Greyjoy? The -ae- seems to be more prevalent in Targaryen names like Aerys, Aemon, Aegon, and Rhaegar... What does everyone think about this?

[JonArryn]

I can agree with you there. The Targaryen names are somewhat exotic and favors the -ae in different combinations. I like how the names are given in this saga but if I can mention one think, then I think the Iron Islanders names' should be more rough. Like the land they live on. But may haps he is named after a distant relative or an idol of someone, they seem to do that often in westerns. But I do think his name doesn't really fit with what his siblings are named. But since he goes by the nickname Damphair it is totally fine since that is very cool. But I do agree with you, it feels a little more sourish or royal than the krakens names.

[KhaleesiDany]

The Krakens do have weirdly bastardized names. I noticed this with "Baratheon." Theon's hiding in there!

[Lan the Clever]

Martin just needed a name ending in "on".

[Lord Rickard Snow]

i bet he has a wheel of letters that he spins to pick the next name different combinations, like a prefix's of names and suffix's and u spin them to pick your name

[JonArryn]

Altough his surname, which he took after his convertion is nice like hell.

[The hairy bear]

There are other non Targaryen names with the "ae", such as Shae, Maege (Mormont), Taena (Merryweather), or the maesters.

[BlackTalon]

I think it makes perfect sense to have house name its child after someone of the ruling house, to curry favour or show their loyalty ... we know that the Twins are overflowing with Walders who are named after their Lord father/ grandfather/ greatgrandfather/ greatgreatgrandfather/ greatgranduncletwiceremoved.

[the stranger in the dark]

I think it makes perfect sense to have house name its child after someone of the ruling house, to curry favour or show their loyalty

In one of the talks with George when he was promoting the tv series and ADWD he said that in writing you are told not to name your main characters with the same first letter as it causes confusion and esp don't give main characters similar sounding or the same name.

He went to justify the use of names saying that many names are repeated because people are naming their children to carry favour. He used the example of the history of England which is full of Edwards and Henrys.

In the books it is shown with the house of fray but also with Lollys baby being called Tyrion.

The repetitiveness of the ae could be a linguistic thing brought from Valeryian similar to letter combinations in our language groups eg Latin

[K.C.]

In one of the talks with George when he was promoting the tv series and ADWD he said that in writing you are told not to name your main characters with the same first letter as it causes confusion and esp don't give main characters similar sounding or the same name.

He went to justify the use of names saying that many names are repeated because people are naming their children to carry favour. He used the example of the history of England which is full of Edwards and Henrys.

In the books it is shown with the house of fray but also with Lollys baby being called Tyrion.

The repetitiveness of the ae could be a linguistic thing brought from Valeryian similar to letter combinations in our language groups eg Latin

Thanks for the insight about GRRM's thought processes.

On the linguistic side, there are many languages mentioned in the books that we know maybe five words of. There's even extensive dialogue in Astapor that Dany's supposed to understand but no translation of what the slaver "really" said. I just interpret this as a tacit acknowledgement that most writers haven't been constructing their foreign languages since they were 14, a la Tolkien.