Vespian name

Vespian names are the traditional naming customs held by the Vespian population. They serve to differentiate the individual Vespians from one another, helping to build a sense of self, as well as denoting one's rank and caste within traditional Vespian society. Because of the highly family-centric nature of Vespian civilization, the importance of one's house, family, and clan, play an important role in one's name, and are featured prominently within the names of a Vespian. There are more than 2,500 surnames in modern usage within Vespia, though the relatively limited number of names has never been a major issue for the Vespians.

Origin and development
Vespian names have historically been incredibly complex, the harsh way of life and survivalist nature of the Vespians giving rise to a naming convention in where one's linage was of great importance. Detailed records kept by the ionaki priesthood helped to facilitate the growth of the deep naming system of the Vespian people, as well as the many honorifics that sprung from it as well. Starting with Veskan, the mythological progenitor of the Vespians, the first Vespians were quick to link themselves to the first of their kind through their names, with the rise of patronymic name aiding with this. The Vespian historian Nazhono Shevaza wrote that the first such patronymic was given to Veskan, linking him to the Vespian god, Zhautan by way of Zhautioku, or "son of Zhautan". This naming system would be copied by Veskan's descendants, all of whom carried the tradition on throughout the rest of their civilization. Overtime, the system would grow to encompass more than six hundred patronymics. All of these would be coalesced into the zhazharun, literally "father name".

The development of the uvadiyorun, or "family name", came about as the number of Vespians began to increase during the time of the Veskoyan Empire. The relative peace and prosperity during the period saw a boom in the Vespian population, giving rise to the issue of multiple individuals holding the same names as Vespians produced more surviving offspring. The combination of given names and patronymics, themselves based off of given names, resulted in a bottleneck of sorts for the Vespian naming convention. The priesthood intervened, and began linking together brothers and cousins, and splitting them off into small clan units which were linked to the eldest surviving male in the family. These units were then named using a combination of places, directions, colors, and elements, which ultimately ended in the formation of the 2,500 uvadiyorun, which would serve as the new Vespian surnames. All Vespians coming of age would be given a uvadiyorun, though this rule would be lifted following the formation of the Veskoyan Empire, and surnames would be given immediately after birth.

Naturally, as the Vespian population continued to grow and the accessibility of resources throughout Vespia strained by the hostile tribes of the region, warfare erupted leading to the Aynad era. Polities built around a series of interconnected family units and martial bonds, led to hundreds of thousands of Vespians banding together to establish the first modern zharukdoms in Vespia. The most populous of these later zharukdoms was that of Zharan, formed and named from an unbroken line of Vespian men drawn from the eldest son of Veskan, Zharan. Originally, the Vespians identified themselves as children of Veskan, but as soon as war broke out across the empire, loyalty shifted from Veskan to one of the twelve sons of Veskan. This resulted in the creation of the hakiyorun, or "house name", which would form an important part of Vespian society and civilization as a whole. The benefit of this development, was the organization of the Vespian people into polities based on larger household units rather than the family units, which simply fought for survival. Thus, the creation of the house names indirectly pooled together both Vespians and resources, that helped to advance of the nation's unity and prosperity as a whole.

Names such as Zhe'Vayan and Zhe'Dejan, immediately followed by the birthplace of the Vespian, were introduced into the Vespian naming system. Ultimately, names such as Thedon Zhe'Dakhan'Tuyama Veshonaioko-Ekivashona, came to dominate the scrolls of ionaki and the bureaucracy of the various zharukdoms of Vespia. The introduction of the caste system would only complicate the system when during the end of the Vakuraya era, and the beginning of the Uvoyakan Empire, Zharuk TBD established the Zhautaza caste system in Zharan, dividing his people and reorganizing them into an effective control and command hierarchy. This development channeled the aggression of the Vespians in a productive manner, while exploiting their "rule of the strong" mentality. All Vespians received two of forty-two new names, based on their new caste and rank, with members of the nobility receiving the title of Zhan and commoners the title of Oku, and so on with the other castes. Thus, already long Vespian names grew even longer to become Va'Kar'Thedon Zhe'Dakhan'Tuyama Veshonaioku-Ekivashona.