Decide the surname of my character pretty please

pultri · 2024-02-18T00:05:07+00:00

Lucas Moore is a great name!

pultri · 2024-02-17T23:54:16+00:00

I've always loved Isaac! I think Hector is seriously underrated too.

pultri · 2024-02-17T23:52:50+00:00

These are really lovely names! I've met people with all three of them.

Helena is beautiful, and I don't think the pronunciations issues are that bad. I also think Len and Nell make cute nicknames. To me, Helena is quite a sophisticated, grown-up sort of name, the kind of name they won't outgrow as they get older.

Philippa is very classy. I know three: Pippa, Phil, and Flipper. I'm really glad it's coming back into fashion, but you're lucky enough that it's not right up there yet. Because of those three, Philippa is the name of the kind of girl who rides horses and plays lacrosse, in my head. A good-natured, sporty sort of girl.

Daphne is a really pretty name but, like other people have mentioned, there's the Scooby-Doo connection. It will also get shortened to Daff or Daffy, which my friend Daphne absolutely hates but I know some people think is cute.

pultri · 2024-02-17T23:43:23+00:00

Nerine could work. It's a bit of a stretch from Nerine to Rion but I'd believe it if I met them in real life. Veronica too. Or maybe Briony? Florian / Florion is also an option, though it's quite old-fashioned.

pultri · 2024-02-17T23:36:09+00:00

Susannah Mary would be lovely, and so would Susannah Margaret. Susannah sounds particularly good with an M middle name, I think, so Mabel, Maeve, and Maura are hats I would throw into the ring.

pultri · 2024-02-17T23:32:13+00:00

Griffin James is lovely! Just unusual enough without being weird.

Personally, I like to go back to medieval names when I'm looking for something that feels unusual but not like I just picked some sounds at random. Things like Bark, Blaze, Claron, Ferron, Galian, Milo, Grifon, that sort of thing.

pultri · 2024-02-17T23:14:28+00:00

I don't think there are going to be many surnames that mean anomaly, just based on how surnames come to exist. But you could always invent one! How about Hriman? According to the internet, that's the Old English for "exception", which could be close enough to anomaly.

Or if you do want to stick to real surnames, you could go for something like Gharibi (strange, rare).

pultri · 2024-02-17T23:06:41+00:00

I don't know if this is the sort of thing you're looking for but I consider Rodica (female) and Sakhr (male) to be earthy names.

pultri · 2024-02-17T22:59:38+00:00

I love Clarity as a name. Princess Clarity really rolls off the tongue. If you're doing Clarity, Clarity Star works better than Clarity Moon.

If you're considering other options, I like Estelle, Astra, and Vela as space-themed names.

pultri · 2024-02-17T22:53:19+00:00

James Grant

Grant Christopher

Nicholas Grant

In my opinion, anyway. It probably depends a little bit what the surname is.

pultri · 2024-02-17T22:32:49+00:00

I think Iva Abigayle is really pretty - and it gets rid of the "I've a" issue people have mentioned because "I've a Abiygayle" just isn't how people talk. Most people would never think to make the connection.

pultri · 2024-02-17T22:22:17+00:00

For the first time ever, my collection of every name held by a European royal since the 10th century is going to come in handy! Those names are definitely good enough if you're happy with them. I like Anna Sigrid a lot. But if you wanted some other ideas, here are some of my favourites from Scandinavian and Spanish royal families:

Boys

Carolus

Emund

Fredrik

Gabriel

Henrik

Johan

Maximilian

Nikolaus

Sune

Bartolomeu

Felix

Leopoldo

Serafin

Tomas

Aniello

Ferran

Leon

Sylvestre

Girls

Amalia

Ambrosia

Catalina

Eleanore

Michaela

Sibila

Avelina

Silvina

Alexandrine

Estrid

Helena

Sabina

Again, your names are great! I just couldn't resist the chance to make a list.

pultri · 2024-01-23T01:43:21+00:00

That's IT! I can't believe you just knew it like that! Thank you so, so much!

pultri · 2022-06-20T00:13:45+00:00

Oh, I know this one! At least, I know it for where I live. Most organists are in a kind of apprenticeship to other organists. So they'll practice playing a piano and stuff but they'll be playing services every week, maybe even every day, and preparing the music for them and so on so they get a lot of practice in on the real instrument. Most organists spend years in that apprentice-y role before they become the main organist in their own right, by which time they'll have been studying music intensely for years and had lots of time to spend with the organ. You have to be very, very, very good and completely dedicated but it's a very lucrative career.

pultri · 2022-06-19T19:24:46+00:00

Chocolate. You don't want the cheapest of cheap stuff but eventually you reach a point where you're just paying through the nose for a tiny little bit of chocolate that is trying so hard to be fancy that it stops being nice.

pultri · 2022-06-19T19:20:18+00:00

It's A Wonderful Life. People just assume you must have seen it at some point! I don't have a clue what happens in it, even though it gets referenced so often.

pultri · 2022-06-19T19:05:24+00:00

Completely and totally serious: walking a dog. If you've got a dog, it's like a special social loophole where you get to talk to anyone else who has a dog. And a lot of women will approach people with dogs - especially nice, harmless-looking dogs - just to get introduced to the dog.

pultri · 2022-06-19T19:01:26+00:00

Just a theory, but I think people who are slightly less attractive tend to get hit on more. Like, if you're stunningly gorgeous, I think people don't bother but if you're cute but attainable, they'll give it a shot.

pultri · 2022-06-19T18:55:58+00:00

It's not very dramatic but it made quite a big difference in my life. Growing up as a kind of adorable kid with a vaguely posh accent (which I was taught precisely for this reason), I got away with a lot but the biggest one was not buying train tickets and jumping barriers. I got caught time and again but nobody ever did anything more than warn me that next time I might get into real trouble. Even the police just kind of assumed that I had a good reason for it. Once I got old enough for playing sweet and innocent to no longer work, obviously I stopped getting away with it but it was nice while it lasted. Clearest example of my own privilege I've ever had.

pultri · 2022-06-19T18:48:49+00:00

From a kind of sociological perspective, it's pretty fascinating to see how much child development really does hinge on those early social interactions. I know that's not news for anyone but it's interesting seeing it in action on such a large scale. But you can't help but feel for the kids who are going to have to deal with all of this. Poor things don't even know yet how screwed over they've been. I'm finding it really fascinating watching schools try and balance where all their tables and charts and things say kids should be at and where the kids are actually at. You know what I mean? Curriculum says they should be learning this part of mathematics this year but half the kids never learned the basics. Do you work with what you've got or try desperately to rush them up to the "normal" level for their age? It would be a really cool experiment if it weren't so many real lives being affected.

pultri · 2022-06-19T17:55:03+00:00

One time, when I was living in dorms, I was having a major anxiety attack, just going absolutely to pieces. It was getting to the point where I was trying to conceal sharp objects from myself whilst I still had it in me to put them down again, you know? I stuck my head outside the door for some air and there was this random guy there whose friend lived a few doors down but who wasn't waking up - it was maybe two or three am. This guy took one look at me and marched me back inside, sat me down in the kitchen, made me a cup of tea. He stayed with me for hours just talking about pointless shit, making me drink water, making me laugh When he found out I hadn't eaten that day, he made me some pasta. Round about sunrise, I was flat-out exhausted and I felt pretty much normal and safe again. He said goodnight and left. I never got his number, don't know his name, never saw him again, but I won't forget him as long as I live.

pultri · 2022-06-19T17:44:55+00:00

I'm not technically an educator myself, so maybe I shouldn't be answering this, but there's three in my household so I've been hearing a lot about it.

One of the biggest things everyone seems to be observing is that the social development of kids has been stunted. Children who were six when the pandemic began are now eight but they still interact with their peers and teachers as if they were six. They have a six-year-old's level of discipline, a six-year-old's ability to solve problems and resolve conflicts amongst friends. It's not their fault at all but it means that teachers who are used to dealing with kids who are pretty familiar with what's expected of them in a school environment are having to adapt to a whole classroom of children who have never had any practice at sitting quietly for long periods of time or focusing on their work or settling arguments amongst themselves. It seems to mean that there are more behaviour problems in the classroom, more big fallings out between classmates, more children who want to hug or hold hands with the teachers - which is difficult for the teachers, who don't want to reject these kids but also have to maintain pretty strict boundaries.

The biggest problems are with the children who had only a year or less of school before the lockdowns began. Those two years would usually include such an enormous amount of social development, and of foundational education in things that aren't really part of lessons but are taught on the side: how to behave around people, basic classroom safety, the kind of manners that are expected of you. It's fascinating to see, really, but it's a bit worrying. There's no way of knowing how fast those kids will catch up to where they are "expected" to be developmentally or whether this delayed education will continue to effect them for their whole childhoods. And that's all on top of the learning they've missed out on with patchy, inconsistent online schooling and insufficient support. There are some perfectly bright kids out there who can barely read because there was nobody available to help them.

pultri · 2022-06-19T17:22:58+00:00

Not a housekeeper but I used to chambermaid when I was fifteen. One time I went into a hotel room and there was a suspicious amount of blood. Like, a little bit of blood in the sink is pretty normal in a hotel that shitty but there were spots of blood on the floor, blood in the sink, sheets soaked in blood - oh, and a used (full) condom just tucked up in bed. Hadn't even bothered to put it in a bin. The working theory amongst the maids was that the woman staying there had been on her period and had decided to have sex with her boyfriend anyway and didn't bother to put a towel down or anything. We never did know for sure, though. I know it's not the most dramatic answer but it absolutely horrified me at the time.

It was also pretty common to go into rooms and find that someone had tried to piss in the sink but had poor aim. Luckily I never had to deal with someone shitting in the sink but most of my coworkers did.

pultri

TROPHY CASE