For your name is precious
The owner of The Rising Moon was a broad-shouldered, strong man with gray-white hair, gray eyes, and a craggy, weathered face. He’d broken his nose long ago, perhaps in the days when he had been an adventurer. Gorstag had been all over the world, people said, swinging his axe in important wars. He had made quite a lot of gold before settling down in Deepingdale, in the heart of the forest, and rebuilding his father’s old inn. Gorstag was kind and quiet and sometimes gruff, but it was he who insisted that Shandril have a good gown for feast-days and when important folk stopped at the inn, even though Korvan said she’d serve them better by staying in the kitchen.
It was also Gorstag who had insisted that she have a last name, when, years ago, the chamber girls had called her “a nameless nobody,” and “a cow too runty to keep, so someone threw it away!” The innkeeper had come into the room and spoken in a voice that had frightened Shandril into silence in mid-sob, a voice that made her think of cold steel and executioners and priestly dooms. “Such words—and all others like them—will never be spoken in this house again.” Gorstag never hit women or spanked girls, but he had taken off his belt then, as he did when he thrashed the stable boy for cruel pranks. The girls were both white-faced, and one started to cry, but Gorstag never touched them. He closed the door of the room and set a chair against it. Then he walked over to the girls, who were both whimpering and, saying nothing, he swung the belt high and brought it crashing down on the floorboards so hard that the dust curled up and the door rattled. Then he put on his belt, took the shocked Shandril gently by the shoulder, and led her from the room, closing the door again behind him.
He had led her down to the taproom and said thickly, “I call you Shandril Shessair, for it is your truename. Do not forget, for your name is precious.” Then Shandril had asked him, voice quavering, “Was I so named by my parents?”
Gorstag shook his head slightly and gave her a sad smile. “In the Realms, little one, you can take any name you can carry. Mind you carry it well.”
Extract from the book Spellfire
By Ed Greenwood
All Rights Reserved.
London: Penguin in association with TSR, 1989.
Call number : Y English GRE
Extract contributed by Margaret Low
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Do you like your given name? Why? If given a choice, what name would you give yourself instead and why?
May 13th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Ok. Confessions. Victoria is not my stated in my IC name. I have no issues at all with my given name. It is one approved and liked by my parents, enough to name their offspring with – so that in itself already endeared it.
I use ‘victoria’ solely for privacy reasons, of course. It is the name of the author of the first adult book I read. After years of doses from Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene -Nancy Drew and Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, this particular author brought me to a different realm. Her style of first person diary – like writing lead me to read aloud and fall in love with words and its natural flow.I was lovestruck from the very first sentence!I think I read almost all of her books. But alas the love doesn’t last. I’ve moved on to a different genre.But I thought I owe it to her, as a tribute to my first love and appreaciation, to use her first name, Victoria Holt.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Neither is this my birth-given name. I don’t really have problems with my name – I have a first one and a middle one. It’s just that the middle one is wayyyyy too long and people always mispronounce it which bothers me. The first name is very easy to pronounce and is quite an ubiquitous name so that’s no problem.
But I wasn’t really satisfied with those. Maybe I felt I needed another name – one of my own picking – to have a proper sense of self as I see it, and not as my parents would like me to be.
My parents know about this name of mine of course, but I don’t plan to make it my legal name or anything. It’s okay, I don’t need the law to recognise my existentialism. It’s very personal.
Apart from this main pseudonym, I collect names from various languages, so I have an Irish name, a Welsh name, a Japanese name, a Korean name..
For me, it’s fun to see where I’d fit in different cultures.
May 24th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
ok… Obviously this is not my given name… i use it for safety purpose. But i am alright with my actual name…I mean, it does not make others laugh at me, so its alright… I guess.
However, if i am able to change my name, i would not like it not to be chinese name.I think Mary-anne sounds nice… So does Candice. HAHA.
I like the name Yvette, but it does not suite me… lol.
June 13th, 2009 at 3:47 am
WOW wierd reading this my name really is Precious (how crazy is that) and when i started a new school my partents told me i could change it if i wanted 2 but i didn’t really think it was that big of a deal i like my name it kind of separates me from everyone else it’s different not just…idk…run of the mill and its super wierd when i meet someone with the same name as me (although i have a couple of times) also i am half mexican half white most people think im african american by just hearing my name!
June 20th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I like my given name because my name is everywhere in singapore- on buildings and roads.
If I had a choice I would still name myself Camden.
August 8th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I’d never tell my parents this but I really don’t like my given name. Over the years it has marked me in many bad ways. Sometimes I just don’t feel proud of it. I wished I knew why my parents gave me the name that gave me. But I don’t think I’ll ever ask; they already named me years before I was born
November 30th, 2009 at 3:19 am
Good job, this article is just great, especially for beginners. I used google translator
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Hi Anielle, you’re not from Singapore ya? Anyway, I never knew a fantasy book can be thought-provoking in such a way. Oh yes, Horace is not my given name as well. We all like to be other people once in a while – so fantasy-like : )
December 11th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
It’s interesting to read all the different comments…
I didn’t like my name (no, not bullfight) when I was younger, coz people often misheard it and I had to repeat myself. But as I grew up I grew more fond of my name and I really like it now.
One thing though, it really irks me when people mis-spell it!