Schedule Update

Just a note, everybody, that the next Raksura story will be posted on May 24th. That will give me a bit more time to work on it.  The next novel, The Harbors of the Sun, is due on June 1, so the last half of this month is going to be a bit busy for me.

In the meantime, there was a question from John Andrews I wanted to go ahead and answer here:

I've always been fascinated by the naming process and some of the names you come up with, especially for courts. I actually find myself daydreaming about good names and interesting themes. Can you talk more about court histories and how a queen might name individuals in their lines? I noticed that a lot of the queens you mention in the history of Indigo Cloud are all gem stones or a color relating to gems (Cerise, Ruby, Lapis, Indigo, Pearl, Jade). Are there similar systems for Consorts within a court? Do the Arbora do it differently?

There isn't any one official naming system for all courts, or even within a court. It tends to be based on individual tastes, and will vary a lot.  For example, the gem names are popular for queens in the Indigo Cloud bloodline, and weather-related names for queens in Emerald Twilight, but that can change and shift over time. There is a general habit of giving all the members of a clutch related names (like River, Drift, and Branch) but it's not always done.  It's also popular to give names related to the mother's name, or if the father was a consort, to his name. Naming babies after ancestors or other older relatives or queens or consorts is pretty common too.  (Though I try not to do that too much in the books, since it would get confusing fast. The Raksuran language would make it clear whether you were referring to Stone the Aeriat or Stone the Arbora, but English doesn't work too well for that.)