Jun. 9th, 2008

In a British type fantasy kingdom where nobility have relatively close gender parity (eldest women automatically inherit full, working titles with no legal fuss, female nobles can vote in the House of Lords equivalent, marriage laws do not assume woman is subsumed in man, marrying a man doesn't give him control over your money/official dignities etc etc):

Would forms of address for female members of the nobility just follow the male pattern?  I killed a useless hour yesterday Googling around sites that explain forms of address for the British peerage, and noticed how they are strongly different for males vs. females.

I know that it irritates people (esp. readers/writers/researchers for the Regency period) when forms of address are used incorrectly, but how correct can you be when your society has a different structure?  Should I just make up something simpler and not worry about it?

I can tell I'm trying to procrastinate doing the actual revision work, or these kinds of questions wouldn't distract me.

Also, it seems to me that in a society with gender equity that if men are routinely referred to by last name only (i.e. John Doe would be often referred to by Doe in documents etc.) then so should women.  But this jars my brain when I look at it, as I've been indoctrinated with cultural expectations about names.  Jane Doe ought to also be known simply as Doe, it seems, but then I start, as the reader, to assume that Doe is male, even if other text clues show me that Doe is female.  Gah.
Anyone got some pleasant sounding suggestions for me on place or usage words to add to "Rowan" ?

So far this story has a:
Hazeldine
Ashdown
Cedarbrook
Oakhelm
Elmwood

Since I used Hazel for the place name of a minor character, I can't use it for a major one... I'm trying to stick to British-native species, so I think that "Cedarbrook" might become "Alderbrook"...

I'd like a tree associated with elfish things for the one main character who still needs a tree/place name, so since Hazel is used I was thinking Rowan or Holly, but Holly sounds too much like Hazel for a repeating character with such different story uses...

So I was thinking maybe Rowanholm?  It's not very euphonious, but it would suggest a status equivalency with Oakhelm.
I'd leave it at just "Rowan" but my world building convention is that folks with a tree name unattached to a place modifier are lower class than those who have place modifiers.  I.e. John Spruce is commoner while a John Spruceton (ewww, I know, not nice sounding) would be higher status.

How sad is it that I'm actually using the book I picked up titled "English Place Names" in creating character names?

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