Talk:RWBY/Characters/@comment-226878-20150612202152

Emblem arguments continued:

I think each Hunter's symbol is dictated by Semblance and family line. I'm willing to bet that Summer Rose had super speed and Taiyang has power boost (hence Ruby's and Yang's respective symbols). Yang may get the red eyes from her mom but that's just a genetic quirk unrelated to her abilities. As we've been shown, her eyes change color based on her emotion not on whether she is in combat. Hunters who are unaware of their parentage likely make up their own symbols.

Further evidence that symbols are dictated by family line: Weiss and the Schnee Dust Corporation. It is unlikely as hell that an entire corporation has based its symbol on that of one 15-year-old girl. And no, I doubt the concept of symbol transferrence is relegated solely to the Schnee family.

Apocryphal: one could say Ruby wore crosses until she fully decided that she would become a Huntress at which point she donned the symbol which belonged to her mother.