Pet peeves (beware some RotE spoilers)

[Albertosaurus Rex]

Ah yes, now I remember.

I am well aware of the old custom of naming children after relatives: it has been a tradition in the Netherlands for hundreds of years. In fact, it was so pervasive that it was standardized: one's oldest son would be named after his paternal grandfather, the second son after his maternal grandfather. The same for daughters, followed by children being named after aunts, uncles or their parents. It is only after World War Two that people have started to abandon this practice, and these days it is virtually nonexistent, although my grandparents seem to have a rather hard time grasping this, despite me and my siblings not being named after our grandparents or any other relatives.

There is a certain beauty about bestowing the name of a loved relative on a child, but the effect of doing this for hundreds of years is stifling. I have done extensive genealogical research on my own family and it looks really stifling to see the same names pop up again and again and again. Apparently, people back then were getting a little tired of it as well, because it led to wide variety of nicknames, to the point that almost nobody went by the name on their birth certificate. Then-common names like Wilhelmina and Elizabeth have four syllables, so there's lots of room to play around. Even so, Miep (Pronounced "Meep") for Wilhelmina and Bep for Elizabeth looks extremely bizarre. (These nicknames have fallen out of favor entirely.)

Long story short, I don't mind the naming after relatives phenomenon if it happens in historical tales or medieval fantasy. I actually liked how in ASOIAF, certain Stark names like Rickard and Eddard popped up again in the related Karstark family. But if a work is set in modern times, it makes me cringe.