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Sidmen
2014-09-15, 01:33 AM
Howdy Everybody!

I have a question that I hope the experts and hobbyists here can help me answer.

First, a little backstory: In my current game the players are in the Queendom of Leone, literally the biggest (but not the most wealthy or powerful) nation on the continent. And when they were helping a barrelmaker deal with some debts he owed to a loan shark - they learned that the commoners in this Queendom take on their profession as their last name. In the above example there was William Cooper and his wife Bethany Cooperswife.

Now, I did this as an aside without too much thought, but they liked it and I'd like to continue the practice. Now, I know a few other medievalish names for professions, but not many - and I'd like some help for common ones that I don't yet know and possibly an online resource I can draw from. In particular, what would you call a lawyer (they met a man who drew up their uncle's Last Will and Testament).

Brother Oni
2014-09-15, 02:34 AM
Howdy Everybody!

I have a question that I hope the experts and hobbyists here can help me answer.

First, a little backstory: In my current game the players are in the Queendom of Leone, literally the biggest (but not the most wealthy or powerful) nation on the continent. And when they were helping a barrelmaker deal with some debts he owed to a loan shark - they learned that the commoners in this Queendom take on their profession as their last name. In the above example there was William Cooper and his wife Bethany Cooperswife.

Now, I did this as an aside without too much thought, but they liked it and I'd like to continue the practice. Now, I know a few other medievalish names for professions, but not many - and I'd like some help for common ones that I don't yet know and possibly an online resource I can draw from. In particular, what would you call a lawyer (they met a man who drew up their uncle's Last Will and Testament).

A quick check finds me this list of professions that were common during the Middle Ages: link (http://arcana.wikidot.com/list-of-medieval-european-professions).

In the UK, since taking a profession as a last name was common, they also tended to append their town or location as an additional identifier, for example you have John the Smith from Wetherby, John the Smith from Llanberis, etc.
Again in the UK, there were three different professions for a lawyer, depending on which court of law they practiced in; solicitors (Court of Chancery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_Chancery)), attorneys (common law) and proctors (Church courts). As I understand it, contracts like Wills would be done by a solicitor.

Edit: Some more digging indicates that it depends on the period in question. Prior to 1209, all lawyers in courts would have been clergy, so either proctors or canonists. After that date, the Church stopped its clergy from practicing law in secular courts, which is where the different groups come about: link (http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/I/InnsofCourt.aspx).

In Japan, it was much simpler - if you were a peasant, you had no last name (at least not until the Meiji reformation).

aberratio ictus
2014-09-15, 03:13 AM
Brother Oni is quite right about the clergy. Sadly, I personally can't help you out with the English terms.

In the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, those people are called "Litigant". Maybe that helps :smallwink:

Ravens_cry
2014-09-15, 03:32 AM
Barrister and solicitor. From my limited knowledge, solicitor sounds right for this.

Brother Oni
2014-09-15, 05:37 AM
Barrister and solicitor. From my limited knowledge, solicitor sounds right for this.

A minor quibble - barrister is a modern term (well 19th Century) and the attorneys I mentioned changed into barristers.

In the modern UK legal system, barristers only do the arguing of the case in court (and wear robes and wigs), while solicitors handle pretty much every other legal aspect - I believe that in the US system, a lawyer would do both.

aberratio ictus
2014-09-15, 06:42 AM
After some thought, I would suggest using advocate/advocatus. The term is definitely medieval (well, it actually goes back to the Roman Empire, but it was used for a long, long time, at least in continental Europe).
While they were representatives of the church in the beginning, they were also laymen, so no ordained priests, which would probably fit the person in your plot.

Sidmen
2014-09-15, 05:04 PM
Thanks guys, especially for that link. I've found lists before but they were never organized in a manner that I could quickly use like that one is.

I think I'm going to go with proctor, because it sounds better as a last name to me. Johnathan Proctor.

I probably would add the "from Hometown" to the format, but they're in the capitol of Leone with its 120,000 population, so they'd most likely just all be named "Johnathan Proctor d'Leone" or some such.

I'm planning on having the different nations of my world have different naming conventions. The Half Elven lords of Edessa go by the "commoners don't need last names" convention. If a human is under the protection of/works for a Half Elven house, they get a last name that boils down to "property of House X" in elvish.

Ravens_cry
2014-09-15, 05:42 PM
A minor quibble - barrister is a modern term (well 19th Century) and the attorneys I mentioned changed into barristers.

In the modern UK legal system, barristers only do the arguing of the case in court (and wear robes and wigs), while solicitors handle pretty much every other legal aspect - I believe that in the US system, a lawyer would do both.
Yes, but modern etymology hardly matters considering we are doing a translation anyway. If they split into those roles in this world, even if that would be anachronistic in ours, then the terms fit.

Beleriphon
2014-09-16, 08:37 PM
Keep in mind that people might also take the name for what their they specifically produce. For example where there are 100 coopers in a big city being named cooper is just cofusion, but you call yourself Bill Ironbarrel then you're the cooper that makes barrels out of iron (or uses something else that implies as such).