OK,

This is a very interesting question that SERIOUSLY gets ignored way too much.

And it's also something I've wondered about, particularly the "how do you know your true name?"

In theory, your father (or mother depending on culture) will name you with a true name at birth, and then your mother, father and "god parents" are entrusted with this name until you are old enough to remember it on your own (of course they will still know it). Or it may come from a priest.

If your parents die when you are young, it would be your god parents job to tell you.

Obviously this doesn't always work.

In Astlan, the exact rules are handled by your religion. It might be a parent naming you, but in many cases, your true name comes from the priest, and your parents only give you a calling/common name. The reason for this? If you are being reincarnated, your true name remains the same and the priest receives it from the deity or an avatar upon recognizing that you are "born again"

So, if all else fails, say your parents died before telling you, as did your god parents, then you'd need to go to a priest of your religion to find out.

Now, what to do if you are an atheist?

First, as will become very clear in book ii. Being an atheist in Astlan, is simply not a good idea. There are people, particularly hermetic druids, that are basically atheists, but one pays a HUGE price for being an atheist.

With your physical presence a seer or sorcerer can probably figure out your true name. It may require a quest.

As a rule, true names don't ever change. Titles, and honorifics don't change. As far as Jr. Sr. Those presume that you have parents/grandparents with the same name, thus your true name will generally have a "the second, the third" in it...or, it may not be any of those...your calling name is not really your true name.

The only time a true name would change would be if two beings literally merged with each other....then it's probably a hyphenate.

In the case of Tom. Earth doesn't use True Names any more. So in his case, he essentially "named himself" when he was summoned. yes that was his name before, but it became set in stone with the bindings....

Following this logic (and Jack Chalker's) a deity could possibly change someone's true name.

Now, as to why true names aren't particularly used on Earth anymore...that's a question for book IV, I think....

I think he was under compulsion to name himself / part of the binding.

Ok so I understand that if two Demons somehow managed to merge together there true name would change. What about 1 Demon splitting himself into two or more separate demons and or non demons? Would this be possible in any fashion? And if so wouldn't this also cause the true name of the now separate entities to change?

Edited by user Saturday, May 24, 2014 1:46:46 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

ok lets say demons can split themselves in half (or someone/thing can split them).
you have a demon with x units of mana/animus and you split them equally (it doesnt matter how often).
memories, however, are nothing but information which you can share with any number of "shells" without any loss of information (unless you have some kind of data corruption).
basically you end up with at least two identical demons (identical at least for the moment of their creation) and since you cant distinguish the copies from the original, they should have the same true name right?

so what happens if you try to bind/summon one of them?
it should at least mess up the spell since the binding is supposed to be put on one specific demon and not several.
perhaps you can compare the binding and summoning process to databases like sql ?
the true name would be something like a unique identifier and you crash the system by returning more that one result

probably overthinking it though :)
have a nice weekend

Ok now you have me wondering why Toms true name is unique.

Was Tom Reborn so had a true name already that he changed to some other name when he named himself. After all he had a True name but somehow the naming of himself changed his name to make it his new true name. Or oh wait you said that a deity could possibly change ones true name. Could he perhaps be a deity that has been reborn and changed his own true name. Because he should have had a true name and unless his true name just happened to be the same as his given name then how did it change?

Is this unique to Tom or do all individuals from worlds that don't know there true names change there own name to become there true name when compelled to tell there name?

Or perhaps he was the Demon king in disguise and he just wanted to visit earth for a while so had himself born as a human baby and then at a designated time had it arranged for himself to get a special demon class weed to send him to the astral plane where he could be returned to Astlan where he would then gain a new body.

Stop me now before I go crazy and think that Tizzy is secretly trying to take over the multiverse with purple unicorns and flying elephants.

I've had similar thoughts, but if time flows the same in all planes of man, but the whole Rupert thing always comes up and ruins most of my thoughts. However Rupert has to have a powerful father if he is a fourth class demon despite being a half-breed. Their also has to be a relation between the two as they look to similar, so I'm going to go back to Tom's previously mentioned deceased father who could have been a reincarnation of a more powerful demon. If so it would explain Tom's naturally large animus as most demon's are halfway between their parents, and since earth has so little mana his demonic traits would never manifest. Pure speculation but it does give a relative of Tom's who died about eleven years ago, while Rupert is eleven years of age. As mentioned Rupert isn't the 10 he appears to be, but 11. Little actual difference so his maturity can be explained by his suspicions in others and the factt that most of the Astlanians are highly paranoid, superstitious, and have yet to question the why of things as they can create effects without a through understanding in many cases. They do have a broad knowledge base, but it is heavily guarded and they bring their superstitions into everything and it often alters their perceptions of reality.

Interesting thoughts...could have used them when figuring out the truth myself.

One thing I can promise you, because I've promised it at Amazon discussion, and because I did once torture a friend with this idea who was giving me feedback while writing the book...

In an the next "Series" (after the first X books) Tom does NOT master Temporamastery and travel back in time and sleep with Rupert's mother. That categorically doesn't happen.

<Tizzy>No, instead, he travels back in time and to earth and becomes his own father....</Tizzy>

No...no...no...that doesn't happen either.

Only living/sentient things have distinct true names. The true name is tied to self identity.

non-sentient living things have names associated with them that can be used to manipulate them, thaumaturgists use these, I believe. Not really sure.

There are also various words for commanding and controlling elements, but I don't know much about that.

It's rather complicated, and I'm not a wizard. A wizard would be better able to explain this.

OK, and some people in reviews said that the Astlanian's are paranoid...JMBT is therefore obviously a wizard from Astlan since JMBT is more paranoid than most of them....

As far as I know, Tom never changed his name. From what I (told the author) know, Jehenna misspelled his name on the ring.

His full name is Thomas Edward Perkinje at least based on what he told Lenamare. of course one could ask, does anyone on Earth really know their true name?

And it seems to me that trying to get your true name changed would be even harder than trying to change your name at the DMV.

This, of course, ties in with the discussion of an afterlife and reincarnation.

Clearly, for reincarnation and afterlifes to work, the religious types need a handle to manage the soul's itinerary. I doubt they use UPS or FedEx tracking numbers, so they need something which would be the true name. So in that case the true name would travel with the soul.

Now, how a father/mother would know this...and also everyone one has a family name, but you keep getting born into another family name each time you reincarnate. (Unless you are Exador but he's faking it)

So eventually, you'd have one seriously long name.

Works fine for new soul births though. No baggage there.

Yep....

In particular, he inscribed it on a ring, thus while there might be some leeway in pronounciation...when you put it in writing, you better get it 100% perfect.

We demons are a bit picky about such things.