Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-25250830-20140905030244/@comment-2.31.7.132-20140908191112

I seriously doubt it was the half-sisters thing that Blake was surprised about. I'm certain that she was responding to the fact that Yang had lost two mothers. It makes sense that Blake and Weiss might not ask about a divorce or death in the family as it can be a touchy subject but if names were passed down from parents then just by process of elimination you could guess that Yangs farther had "lost" her mother.

The point at which Blake was shocked was when she mentioned her farther had lost his first love (again guessable) but before Yang mentioned that mum abandoned them which is more shocking. It could be an oversight but one of the things I like about RWBY is that they are pretty good with subtle body language and tis would be a big oversight. I also admit it could be that it had been a touchy subject which Yang and Ruby had avoided answering questions to and that Yang finally opening up was what was shocking but again non of this interaction was shown before hand which is a big oversight.

It could be that each kingdom or region has its own rules an obvious example would be Lie Ren who is so far shown to be the only person who has a family name before his given name. But that would still mean that certain people get to choose there own names.