Marriage and family names

[Odstarva]

So, I've been googling around a lot but I couldn't find any answers.

When it comes to marriage, does either of the spouses adopt the other one's family name?
Is it only applicable to the children of said couple?

I know lalafell, roegadyn and sun seekers view things very differently, but what about hyur and elezen?


I feel like I should know the answer, but I can't find anything.
Would I be right to assume that since they are closer to what we do in the real world, our real-world rules apply?


I apologize in advance if this question has already been asked and answered!

[KageTokage]

I don't recall them going into much detail about how names are passed down for any races outside of the Miqo'te.

[Enkidoh]

Well, we can actually determine a fair bit of information about family naming from indirect sources, one of the best is the official naming traditions thread.

But to summarize, hyur clearly take family names (the Hildibrand quests are actually an example of this, although who actually took the name Manderville when Godbert and Julyan married is unclear). The naming conventions thread also made note of the padjali naming conventions referring to how certain Midlander families in Gridania tend to produce multiple padjal and thus when a Midlander child is chosen by the elementals to become a padjal they retain their Midlander family name (the Senna siblings are an example, 'Senna' is their Midlander family name).

As for elezen, again like the hyur they clearly adopt family house names to the point of zealousness, but Ishgardian elezen especially have their own traditions in this (not mentioned in that thread, but obvious during the Heavensward storyline). Specifically, in the Ishgardian nobility a family name is only taken by the children of the family if they are legitimate offspring. Illegitimate children however are sadly forbidden to take the family name, instead bearing a nondescript moniker (Haurchefant is an example, he was not given the Fortempts family name but instead the generic, somewhat Midlanderesque surname 'Greystone', although Edmont loved him all the same - Atoriel in particular stating Edmont had a soft spot for him and "never could say no to my dear brother".).

An exception to this is Aymeric, whose surname is de Borel (so presumably his family name), yet he too was revealed during HW's story as also being illegitimate (although Aymeric's status as a bastard child is unusual, as he was born to a member of Ishgard's clergy (who, like the modern Catholic church, are forbidden to marry or bare offspring), and thus the rumours of his parentage have hounded him all his life (and confirmed at the end of the Vault when Aymeric yells "FATHER!!" to Archbishop Thordan). Hence it's likely Aymeric was given his mother's name as a way of sweeping proof of Thordan's indiscretion under the rug.

Elezen outside of Ishgard (read: Gridania) seem to follow a similar naming pattern. Louisoix's grandchildren after all share his surname, and this suggests that traditionally elezen children at least seem to take their father's name, but there is no 100% proof of this.

[ObsidianFire]

Changing your last name when you get married only seems to apply to Hyur and Elezen. All the other races have surnames that aren't changed when getting married for various reasons. Many of them have to do with keeping track of who the father/mother of the person is.

General Info about Surnames

Hyur: Midlander surnames are mostly based on professions, locations where people lived or some outward feature. Highlander surnames seem to be more "violent" and based on nicknames people earned in battle.

Elezen: The surnames are split up between the Wildwood and Duskwight clans. You will never find a Wildwood elezen with a Duskwight surname and vice-versa. All Surnames are also valid male forenames as well.

Miqo'te: Seeker surnames for males is pretty easy. They're either the head of a harem and are a Nunh or not and are a Tia. Females simply have their father's name without the clan letter. Keeper surnames work like Hyur and Elezen surnames work, but it's the mother's surname that is passed down instead of the father's. I could see males taking their wife's name for this clan.

Lalafell: Surprise! There technically is no surname for either Dunesfolk or Plainsfolk. Instead it's more of a second forename that follows each clan's particular rhyme scheme. So nothing gets passed down from the parents and nothing changes when Lalafell get married.

Roegadyn: Sea Wolf surnames consist of the father's surname with "syn" or "wyn" tacked on the end depending if they are male or female. The Hellsgard don't make use of surnames. The "surname" seen in-game is part of their forename.

Au Ra: Raen surnames come in two flavors. The Raen with "official" surnames are from the warrior and ruling classes. These are more then likely passed down the family line and are probably changed when people get married. The Raen with "unofficial" surnames is everyone else. Their names are usually something to do with their profession. It should be noted that Doman/Hingan Huyr and Roegadyn use the same naming patterns as the Raen do. Xaela surnames are their tribal names. So everyone in the same tribe has the same surname. The only reason I could think someone would change their tribal name if they got married was if they got married to someone outside the tribe and then went to join the other tribe. We do have a Sidequest that revolves around this.

The "primary sources" I got this stuff from. The Race Naming Conventions thread. The Lore Book has some stuff. And the FFXIV Name Generator Full List which includes how all the different names are "built" by the game.

Edit about Ishgard stuff: "de" is a title of nobility. All the high houses use this with their legitimate members. You'll also notice that all the Heavensward have this as part of their names, even though it's revealed in the lore book that not all of them are actually from noble houses. This was added to their names after they became members of the Heavensward.

The surname given to people who aren't born into a proper family in Ishgard is Myste (yes, like the NPCs from the DRK quests). Aymeric for all intents and purposes is a legitimate, trueborn member of his house, the house Borel. The previous Lord and Lady Borel had been unable to have children and were more then happy to adopt and treat Thorden's child as their own. Because everyone was "in one it" (and were happy to be at that!), the rumors that Aymeric was adopted didn't really go anywhere.

[Iscah]

For the races with family surnames (Hyur, Elezen, 'upper-class' Raen), I would assume it works "like reality unless noted".

As well as the Mandervilles mentioned above, the other definite example we have (that I can think of anyway) is the Hawthorne family in East Shroud - Rolfe Hawthorne and Rosa Hawthorne are married, so it seems that Midlanders follow that rule at least.

Keepers of the Moon are matriarchal, so children take their mother's surname. Apparently males aren't traditionally part of the family unit, but if individuals did get married, most likely neither would change their name, since male names are essentially "Xth son of [mother's name]".

The surname given to people who aren't born into a proper family in Ishgard is Myste (yes, like the NPCs from the DRK quests).

And also the sky pirates Leofard and Stacia. The lorebook notes in Leofard's profile that it's a "surname common amongst the city's abandoned".

[WhiteArchmage]

Lalafell: Surprise! There technically is no surname for either Dunesfolk or Plainsfolk. Instead it's more of a second forename that follows each clan's particular rhyme scheme. So nothing gets passed down from the parents and nothing changes when Lalafell get married.

The only "exception" to this (which is not really an exception, since it's tacked on) is the Ul'dan and Sil'dih royal families, which add(ed in the case of Sli'dih) either Ul or Sil as a "middle name" of sorts, like our Sultana Nanamo Ul Namo and her father Sasabal Ul Sisibal.

[LineageRazor]

But to summarize, hyur clearly take family names (the Hildibrand quests are actually an example of this, although who actually took the name Manderville when Godbert and Julyan married is unclear).

I think the odds are staggering that Julyan took the Manderville name, judging by the fact that both Hildebrand and Godbert place an inordinate amount of pride in the Manderville name, seeing it as a veritable symbol of strength, virtue, and manliness, with the implication that there is a weight of generations behind it. If it was just Hildebrand, I might agree with you - he could be including himself among the many manly men of Julyan's family. But the fact that Godbert considers himself to be a Manderville man as well is telling; it's pretty ridiculous to think you could become a manly Manderville man simply by marrying into the family. (On the other hand, Godbert is something of an odd duck, and might well actually believe that.)

As for why a formidable woman like Julyan would allow a man to take her name away from her? Most likely, because she loved him, and saw that he wrapped up more of his personal identity in his name than she did in hers. (There may well have been shameless groveling and inelegant blubbering on his part, as well.)

[AmemeAmeklin]

An exception to this is Aymeric, whose surname is de Borel (so presumably his family name), yet he too was revealed during HW's story as also being illegitimate (although [...] Hence it's likely Aymeric was given his mother's name as a way of sweeping proof of Thordan's indiscretion under the rug.

Correction here: Aymeric was adopted by the Borel family, which consisted of an older couple who had been unable to bear children of their own. I believe at the moment he lives alone in the family mansion with an elderly retainer (seen during the dinner date) and, according to a source I have yet to find but hear about a lot, a very unfriendly cat.

It is not certain who his birth mother was, as far as I know.

[Iscah]

...and, according to a source I have yet to find but hear about a lot, a very unfriendly cat.

I’ve also only heard about his cat from other people mentioning it. I thought I’d read it in the lorebook a while ago, couldn’t find the information again when I went looking for it (nothing in his profile), but just came across it now while checking something else - and it wasn’t about Aymeric at all, but Reyner. So I guess what happened is that I vaguely remembered the line about someone owning a cat, saw people talking about Aymeric having a cat, and connected the two.

So unless there is an actual source elsewhere, there’s a chance that other people have done the same thing? And then enough others take their word for it, and suddenly everyone knows that Aymeric has a cat without a single canon source.

For that matter, it’s not clear that “cats” as we know them exist in the game, I think. Even the cute little minions are “coeurls” and the lorebook’s actual wording is that Reyner has “an elderly feline that he once kept in the hold of a warship”. So I doubt it was a full-size coeurl (though perhaps a chance it was a trained war beast) but still, it seems more likely they’re just avoiding the term “cat” even though I think the sentence would read better if they used it.

I also vaguely remember a quest item called a Lion Medal that was described as depicting “a legendary beast with a head that somewhat resembles a Miqo’te” which seemed clever at the time, but not so much when there are several other actual cat-like creatures in the world - including ones we’d already encountered at that point.

[KageTokage]

The Fat Cat minion's description suggests that Miqo'te would rather not be considered relatives of cats, fat or otherwise, so I think they do exist.

There's also that quest in Coerthas Western Highlands which involves retrieving a lady's "cat", which is noted to actually be a coeurl cub in the aftermath, which alarms some of those involved.