Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4010415-20140421154105/@comment-25399914-20141114230839

I agree the emblems are important, if they weren't Juane wouldn't have hidden hide his true emblem. This is possibly linked to the surnames in the world of Remnant discussion.

Personally I think that they are most likely similar to ether Mon or Heraldic Badges used to identify allegiance or as a symbol of familial ties. If they were an indication of semblance then Juane has a symbol so would have some clue as to his semblance.

There are emblems which obviously have no indication of semblance like Pyrrha's symbol is a spear and shield or Sun's which is a Monkey. It's possible that given the awkwardly given answer semblances are to a certain degree hereditary that some of the family / clan emblems come to resemble the most prominent semblance within that group hence variations of the rose for Adam, Summer and Ruby or the burning heart for Yang and Taiyang.

The problem is the lack of family ties really explored in RWBY and barely anything has been discussed in show about the families we've seen.

The Malachite twins - We don't know what the Malachite emblem is or even if they share the same one.

Ruby and Yang - Half sisters with different emblems and surnames. Ruby shares both her family name and emblem with her mother Summer Rose. Yang shares her family name with their farther Taiyang Xiao Long but we haven't seen his emblem (I'm guessing there the same). Notably Nether of there mothers nor there farther changes family names so we don't have an indication of marriage customs (whether it is just a common law thing or whether it is legal but people don't change there names). Nor does this give us an indication of child naming.

Weiss Schnee - She shares both her family name and symbol with her farther, sister (Winter) her grandfather and Willow.

All we know about Blakes parent is that they were members of White Fang when they were peaceful, we don't know if they are alive or still members of WF never mind there names.

We know Juane is hiding his true symbol and has seven sisters. He'd hide his true symbol for one of two reasons, his family / clan is famous / infamous and would be an indicator he faked his transcripts. He is using the transcripts of someone who didn't want to go to Beacon and is masquerading as them meaning he isn't ev3en called Juane Arc.