Are Merlin's Welsh Names A Security Risk?

Or aviation IC engines for me

n7axw wrote:

saber964 wrote:


Merlin is a rare name but not completely unknown try googling Merlin Olsen he was a football player(LA Rams 60's and 70's) actor late 70's and 80's and sports broadcaster.

When I think of Merlin, what comes to mind for me is the wizzard in the King Arthur story.

Don

Brigade XO wrote:I don't recall there being children amoung the Adams and Eves but I could be wrong.

There were no children among the Adams and Eves, according to HFQ, the hibernation drugs were too dangerous for them/ (More dangerous than the Gbaba?)

Keith_w wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:I don't recall there being children amoung the Adams and Eves but I could be wrong.

There were no children among the Adams and Eves, according to HFQ, the hibernation drugs were too dangerous for them/ (More dangerous than the Gbaba?)

Only so many people they can carry. One child won't take much less capacity than one adult. Ark was a survival plan for the species first and for individuals second.

For the first, everyone had to be able to play their role perfectly: parent and community founder for Adams and Eves, terraformers and colony organizers for the command staff. Children couldn't do any of those.

For the second, if the drugs were going to be riskier for the children than for the adults, cold math means the children stay behind. With 8 million people of some tens of billions going, it's not as though many children were ever going to be rescued. What any of them could hope for, at best, would be to have nieces and nephews or cousins further removed who go on to be born and to live.

I can well understand how Nimue's father didn't much care for her mother's unilateral decision to bring her into that world.

PeterZ wrote:Or aviation IC engines for me

Most people think King Arthur before obscure aviation trivia. Merlin's a central character of the King Arthur mythos. You'd be LUCKY if a WWII story even mentions a Merlin engine.

In the modern day, the name "Merlin" is instantly recognizable. Given how old the King Arthur legend is (and how much the King Arthur story gets recycled in some form by modern media), it wouldn't be surprising if everyone in the Gbaba war was also familiar with the name Merlin.

Hell, one of the exodus ships was named Excalibur for crying out loud!

Hi EvilAuthor,

Given the shifts in English pronunciation and grammar just from Bede [7th-8th century] to Chaucer [14th century] to Shakespeare etc [16th to 17th], then to the much wider literature we have of the 18th century, and again to the more informal spelling of the 19th century, the 20th century as we have recorded in literature, then somewhat frozen by the 20th century's recording media, until the US parental unique naming and spelling mania from the 70's that makes almost every kid in an elementary school class today have a different spelling, if not a unique pronunciation independent of the spelling are tokens of the pronunciation and spelling shifts in English compared to the more rigid grammar and spelling forms of Spanish.

There are many cultures today that change their names after significant events, including those based on the bible.

The fact that so many Safehold names are recognizably ethnic in their origin only adds to the potential shifts one should expect in almost a thousand years of amalgamating them all.

We have no indication the church has ever tracked, or ever considered tracking the potential generation of names as different folks integrated differently named persons into their family naming traditions.

Do you remember the Dick Van Dyke Show episode where he explains to his son that his middle name uses all the initials of family members they wanted to commemorate?

Then there's 'States Right Gist', a ACW confederate general so named by his father, a supporter and admirer of Calhoun.

Given the whims of less literate peasants to choose imposing names, its surprising we've seen only one person named after Seijin KHody IIRC.

The fact the archangels didn't eliminate non English names when the created the Adams implies considerable ignorance about culture as well as psychology given how much memory had to be left for the colonists to use to survive; yet they expected their god endorsed mandate to prevent all questioning, which indicates they had very little experience with young children, even if many Terrans were still having children, which may say more about their mental state and outlook.

L

evilauthor wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Or aviation IC engines for me

Most people think King Arthur before obscure aviation trivia. Merlin's a central character of the King Arthur mythos. You'd be LUCKY if a WWII story even mentions a Merlin engine.

In the modern day, the name "Merlin" is instantly recognizable. Given how old the King Arthur legend is (and how much the King Arthur story gets recycled in some form by modern media), it wouldn't be surprising if everyone in the Gbaba war was also familiar with the name Merlin.

Hell, one of the exodus ships was named Excalibur for crying out loud!

lyonheart wrote:The fact the archangels didn't eliminate non English names when the created the Adams implies considerable ignorance about culture as well as psychology given how much memory had to be left for the colonists to use to survive; yet they expected their god endorsed mandate to prevent all questioning, which indicates they had very little experience with young children, even if many Terrans were still having children, which may say more about their mental state and outlook.

This could use a lot more stress than it's gotten - we've been spared the details of the horror of Earth's Last Generation. But think about it - you'd be having children in the practical certainty that they would live under Gbaba death sentence for short lives then die with all the rest of humanity. Or you'd make yourself the last of your family line - or expect that was the choice and have it subverted by your partner, in Mr. Alban's case.

The smaller number of children about meant less experience with them, and anyone with any empathy is going to look at any of those kids and think of how they wouldn't live to see 30, and have parents who brought them into the world with that as a live possibility (or certainty, if the parents were well-informed). Plenty of the rest of the younger people would be orphan refugees from lost planets, with parents who got their kids a berth on an evacuation vessel and sacrificed their own to some neighbor's kids.

The Operation Ark command crew were the survivors of that kind of background. They were none of them right in their heads, and probably wrong-er in the heads when it came to kids. At best, they may have viewed all the children Adams and Eves (and maybe themselves - go Stone Schueler) could have as tear-jerking avatars of hope, joy, and relief. I don't see that as an encouraging environment for demands that they be named this or that - your fellow "angels" may punch you in the face for the suggestion. Just have the kids, have more of them, love and cherish them. (And, incidentally, use the Book of Bedard and whatever professional help we can offer to do that, because we "angels" mostly know damn-all about how to do it, what with having few of our own back in "heaven"....)

But yeah, their circumstances probably gave them much less familiarity with children's curiosity than we readers do.

evilauthor wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Or aviation IC engines for me

Most people think King Arthur before obscure aviation trivia. Merlin's a central character of the King Arthur mythos. You'd be LUCKY if a WWII story even mentions a Merlin engine.

In the modern day, the name "Merlin" is instantly recognizable. Given how old the King Arthur legend is (and how much the King Arthur story gets recycled in some form by modern media), it wouldn't be surprising if everyone in the Gbaba war was also familiar with the name Merlin.

Hell, one of the exodus ships was named Excalibur for crying out loud!

My point is that the name is NOT dead as of our time and may not be in the Terran Federation before the Gbaba destroyed it. They named a ship Excalibur for Heaven's sake!

PeterZ wrote:My point is that the name is NOT dead as of our time and may not be in the Terran Federation before the Gbaba destroyed it. They named a ship Excalibur for Heaven's sake!

Sure, but Merlin isn't a COMMON personal name and I can easily see not one of several million colonists or even command crew having it. But the ones who remember Federation culture - and particularly the King Arthur stories - would instantly recognize the name "Merlin".

Also, "Excalibur" is named from the story.

BTW, how many people are named Aragorn? Or Thor? Or Sauron? Or Cthulu?

Given the success of the Marvel and LOTR movies, more than I am willing to guess.

evilauthor wrote:

PeterZ wrote:My point is that the name is NOT dead as of our time and may not be in the Terran Federation before the Gbaba destroyed it. They named a ship Excalibur for Heaven's sake!

Sure, but Merlin isn't a COMMON personal name and I can easily see not one of several million colonists or even command crew having it. But the ones who remember Federation culture - and particularly the King Arthur stories - would instantly recognize the name "Merlin".

Also, "Excalibur" is named from the story.

BTW, how many people are named Aragorn? Or Thor? Or Sauron? Or Cthulu?

And I think of the modern SpaceX Rocket Engines, or the Merlin Rocket sailboat. The name has been used plenty of times over the years for many things.

PeterZ wrote:Or aviation IC engines for me

n7axw wrote:When I think of Merlin, what comes to mind for me is the wizzard in the King Arthur story.

Don

saber964 wrote:


Merlin is a rare name but not completely unknown try googling Merlin Olsen he was a football player(LA Rams 60's and 70's) actor late 70's and 80's and sports broadcaster.