Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-24993958-20160209135716/@comment-209421-20160218024620

VedranTheII wrote: Wow I’d hate to end up as your kid right now…your logic sounds all fine and dandy for Jaune and Ruby, but what about the kid? If you want to play the “it makes sense in Remnant” card, let me explain to you in one word why your idea is bull.

 Individuality I have 2 names, one my mother gave me out of her favorite character from a book, another from my godfathers great grandfather that they insisted I get out of respect for him…I barely acknowledge my second name unless I'm introducing myself and have always, ALWAYS, insisted on people never using my second name when addressing me. Why? Well of the top of my list: cause I’m not my godfathers great grandparents, cause I don’t want to be him when I can be me…but most important of all, cause the first name was given to me out of love, while the second one was given to me out of love for someone else ….maybe that’s not objectively true, but it’s true for me, and it can be true for the kid you are treating like some slab of meat Jaune and Ruby can shove their regrets and gratefulness on. Naming their kid Pyrrha does nothing but take away her individuality, as the kid stops being herself, and becomes a mirror they will use to compare Pyrrha. I’d frown if this was done in real life and it’s doubly disrespectful in Remnant, a universe that EMPHATHISES individuality, a person’s right to stand on his own and make his own choices. In their child’s place I’d change my name the first chance I got., and you can try and tell her all you want about how important Pyrrha was to the world, but for her, that name will be nothing but a burden and a weight she will carry on her shoulders for the rest of her life, as every, single, action, she will take will get compared to Pyrrha, either by her, her parents, or the rest of the world.

Right. Hold it right bloody there mate. I'm sorry, where exactly is the removal of individuality in this? That, my friend, falls on parenting style. It's all about the connotation and use of the name as to how it influences the child.

From what you describe, you were given a name that was insisted upon by an outside force, not your parents. I was given my name because it was the closest thing they could get to a car part. I kid you not.

IF the child is raised on stories of the namesake, and the parents try their best to make that namesake an emphasis, then yes, it will influence negatively the child's point of view. Say the child does something that is not only wrong, it is against what the namesake stood for. Asking the child "why couldn't you be more like X", in this instance Pyrrha, is asking for trouble. It's the parents trying to shoehorn the child into a behavior set they want, and try to turn the child into that person. Big no-no.

BUT, if the parents simply treat it as a name that they both like, then where's the issue? The child doesn't need to know about their namesake immediately. They don't need to know about who they were, or what they meant. It's a name. If the child asked, then they could be introduced to the memory of that person, but not shoehorned into trying to be them.

Also.... if I was a parent, I wouldn't be naming my kids after people that influenced my life, because then if I had a daughter, I'd be going through the list of girls that banded together to help me get treatment that identified my depression. No, I've got names that I adore, use frequently in my writing... and it'd have to be a name the mother agreed to.

Guess in this instance we'll have to agree to disagree on this point, because it appears the key issue is parenting style.

Sources: I'm a psych student focusing on childhood psychology. Also asked a few sets of parents about the background of the names they chose, and what it would mean if they named the child for somebody.