Fun with technicalities!

[ursula]

Just in case you're not aware of this, the SCA registers names. The SCA guarantees that a registered name will be "unique": of course, the meaning of unique is a complicated issue, especially when we're talking about plausible names for medieval people.

This is a poll about what you think uniqueness ought to mean. This is not a poll about whether names should be unique, nor is it a quiz on the rules as they currently stand; it's a philosophical exercise.

[Poll #1098571]

Comments

[ccommack]

(As of my answers, all of my choices were in the majority or plurality. I'm not sure what that means.)

To further expound on 'Whether two names could historically have referred to the same person', there's a lot of historical background that is attached to that. Ursula Georges would not have been referred to as Ursula George in England (unless she immigrated, maybe) because that's not how French people were treated in England, whereas Seumas mac a'Phearsain would almost invariably have been called Seamus MacPherson, because of the subordinate relationships the Gaelic-speaking countries had with England.

It's way, way out of period, but I shudder to imagine how the SCA would handle the Japonification of Korean names during the imperial era, which is a similar situation but with different/no rules applicable. (I personally don't know if/what the rules were.)

The one question I hesitated over for a long time was "Pedro Fernandez Perez", because I'm not sufficiently familiar with Spanish surname rules.

I've never been to an SCA event, but I've spent lots of time with people who have, and I like their lore, so the lack of official affiliation may be misleading.

[ursula]

What about the subordinate relationship English-speaking English people had with French-speaking English people?

I'm working on the assumption that most of my friendslist might have ended up in the SCA given a few interested friends at the right time.

[ccommack]

My knowledge of that period of English history and the linguistic norms associated with it is slim to nonexistant, but I will acknowledge the oversight.