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Stark: Name or Title


YOVMO

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5 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

I'd say: by marrying one ;) Brandon the Builder wasn't an Orys Baratheon et. al...

SweetSunray this is EXACTLY why I post things here. It never would of occurred to me that there was even a possibility of the female name being taken. Awesome.

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I've read "the" (Stark, Wull, Liddle...) to be a regional terminology.   As I believe you stated above, the qualifier would have to be capitalized (The) to be an actual title as in The Mance.   What I find curious here is that Wull, Liddle etc, are surnames where Ned is a first name.   I suppose it could be that Ned was loved just that much by the outlying families?  Would be interesting to know if Ned's pop was known as the Rickard.   I'm thinking this "the" is an affectionate term used in the far north--you don't see The Wull refer to Roose as the Roose.    He's just Bolton of the tasty blood.   No affection there.   Gotta love those northern clansmen. 

I've never made a genealogy chart, but I understand that many of our surnames were taken for locations, professions and other non relative reasons.   The name Smith would be shortened from say blacksmith, like that.   My last name ends in land, indicating some tie to the place my people hail from.   I see no reason Brandon of the Bloody Blade would need another surname outside these titles the early family members employed.   It would make sense that the family name "Stark" would come later, perhaps as a descriptor of the place they live.   

Could be the 1st Men had no word for Lord or King.  In that case, "the" would be a sort of title.  I'm thinking this would be helpful for distinguishing the Stark from the rest of the Starks for finalizing deals, enforcing rules.  Remember the Stark brothers who lived during the Night King episode?   We had the Stark, Brandon the Breaker and his brother, an unnamed Stark who rose to Lord Commander of the Nights Watch.  We know the LC brother manipulated the NW to his own design not in accordance with the vows he took.  There could have been some need to distinguish between the brothers among the other families.  

Since Jon is a bastard, but the only known son of the Ned to survive, what would he be called if he ever took up residence as a ruler at Winterfell?  What do they call Lady Barbary?  Alyce Karstark? 

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21 hours ago, YOVMO said:

Stark is obviously a surname but there are several occasions when it is used as a title as in "The Stark of Winterfell" which, unlike "a stark of winterfell" which seems to mean a stark family member in the line of the lord, seems like a title.

To my knowledge, THE Stark of Winterfell refers to the specific Stark tasked with holding Winterfell in the absence of all other Starks, i.e. Bran Stark during the WoFK or Benjen Stark during Robert's Rebellion.

21 hours ago, YOVMO said:

The reason I ask is because I am wondering where "Stark" came from. Was Bran the Builder Brandon Stark? What about Brandon of the Bloody Blade? By rights he should have been Brandon Greenhand. At some point in the age of Heros between Brandon of the Bloody Blade coming to maturity and going out into the world and making his mark on it and Bran the Builder building winterfell the name (or title) Stark was taken and I was curious as to when, why, how etc.

Greenhand is less a name and more of a title. Also, if that were the case, nearly all of the families from the Reach would be named Greenhand, given that this is the name of their progenitor.

Also, this makes the assumption that BotBB was the progenitor of BtB.

Unfortunately, that would be speculation, given that there is no clear account of this. Some sources cite BtB as his descendant, while others name him as a contemporary with GG or the Last Hero.

Besides, most of the stories that feature GG claim him as a deity: wherever he steps, trees grow, or he could get a woman pregnant just by grabbing her kitty, etc.

I would take any story about him with a grain of salt.

My thought is that the Reach is the opulent capitol of the south, trapped in their own fantasies and lore. It also doesn't help that they have the Citadel to prop up their lies. 

21 hours ago, YOVMO said:

Most other names make sense. Garth Greenhand founding house Gardener, Lann the Clever with Lannisters, Durran and House Durrandon.

Wait, how does Gardner make more sense than Stark. Or Tyrell, Tarly, Rowan, Martell, Bolton, Frey, Tully, Connington, Corbrey, Arryn etc.

You could make a case for Stark or Gardner being named for their surroundings, but try to make sense of the others.

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6 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'd also say that the use of a definite article is about placing emphasis on position and precedence.. the king, the lord etc. except the name is given instead of the title. 

I actually agree ;) What The Neds Little Girl posted here is right inline with the author decision to do so. Especially since we know GRRM used so much Norse, Hadrian’s Wall, Scottish type influences for the north. People were essentially calling Arya a “princess”, probably not too unlike Meera calling Bran her prince (but there could be more to Meera doing so anyway). 

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I suspect that "Stark" was a title. We know that 2 red kings raided and burned down Winterfell. We may not ever know  what actually happened either times, but I assume that their soldiers at least tried to hunt down and kill all male relatives of kings of winter. So it is possible that at least direct bloodline of original "Starks" was broken.

In fact there is even a possibility that those red kings left both times one of their own male relatives as a new "Stark of Winterfell" to rule lands around WF in their names. But both times descendants of those new "Starks" rebelled against their male relatives ruling from Dreadfort.

Ps. How long red kings have been Boltons? Or was "Bolton" a title or name? :)

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I think people like Bran the Builder, Brandon of the Bloody Blade, and Garth Greenhand were intended to just be legends and shouldn't be taken any more seriously as a historical account than something like the Iliad in our own world. Not sure if you're aware but other noble houses are rumored to have descended from Garth and all have different last names. "Stark" was likely chosen based on some of it's meanings in our world and the way it sounds.

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On 29-11-2017 at 3:04 PM, YOVMO said:

SweetSunray this is EXACTLY why I post things here. It never would of occurred to me that there was even a possibility of the female name being taken. Awesome.

As Arya says in her first chapter of the series: girls matter ;)

And your question possible solved my questions surrounding why George has Orys Baratheon take everything Durrandon, but the name, in contrast to how Houses managed to continue their name evenif they had been in similar circumstnaces. Think House Dustin for example, House Reed... conquered and defeated, daughter taken to bride, etc... names still exist. Or think of the hint that the name Arryn precedes the Andals and thus originally was an FM name, combined with weirwood thrones and such ... as if the Andal Arryns adopted the family name of a First Men house, despite the fact that they looked down on and warred FMs. Considering all this, Orys Baratheon's pasting his name on everything Durrandon is quite unprecedented. (Funny that Argilac was called the "arrogant" one when all three men involved in the downfall of House Durrandon were arrogant).

And then we have the present story of House Stark, where possibly the survival of the name House Stark will depend on the Ned's Little Girl. Do we know of any bastard of house Baratheon who might do the opposite of Orys, because he's not arrogant, and do what I propose Brandon the Builder might have done - adopt the Stark name?

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6 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

As Arya says in her first chapter of the series: girls matter

Touche

6 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

And your question possible solved my questions surrounding why George has Orys Baratheon take everything Durrandon, but the name, in contrast to how Houses managed to continue their name evenif they had been in similar circumstnaces. Think House Dustin for example, House Reed... conquered and defeated, daughter taken to bride, etc... names still exist. Or think of the hint that the name Arryn precedes the Andals and thus originally was an FM name, combined with weirwood thrones and such ... as if the Andal Arryns adopted the family name of a First Men house, despite the fact that they looked down on and warred FMs. Considering all this, Orys Baratheon's pasting his name on everything Durrandon is quite unprecedented. (Funny that Argilac was called the "arrogant" one when all three men involved in the downfall of House Durrandon were arrogant).

The labeling of "the arrogant" has always seemed odd to me.

6 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

And then we have the present story of House Stark, where possibly the survival of the name House Stark will depend on the Ned's Little Girl. Do we know of any bastard of house Baratheon who might do the opposite of Orys, because he's not arrogant, and do what I propose Brandon the Builder might have done - adopt the Stark name?

Makes sense. Thinking about the title it occurs to me that I never fully understood how the Scots used "The Bruce (Brus)" Like Robert the Bruce. What did it mean to be The Bruce of something. I swear I read the wiki and still don't get it. Wonder if this might be at play

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