Kaldorei family name questions and speculation

Lore Story Forum
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So, this is something in the back of my mind for a while, But I was curious to how transference of the family name works for kaldorei society, in terms of marriage and kids. Thinking of the stablished lore for RP purposes (not that i RP, but i make small backstories for each character i play in game) but as well see if anyone has a lore source on that.

The main thing is, the only officially married couple of night elves I know are Malfurion and Tyrande, and both kept their last names, they also donā€™t have any biological son or daughter, with Shandris being adopted by Tyrande.

With that in mind, I have come to several doubts with Kaldorei naming, and some conclusions or speculations i could draw from those questions.

When night elves marry, do any of the parts change the last name? The evidence we have is no, but that evidence is a single isolated event, that based on the characters it surrounds, it could be an exception, with both malfurion and Tyrande being the leaders of their society and the meta reason that both characters have their lastname almost the same importance as their first name, but still, is worth to consider their case could be the rule, you donā€™t pass your name to your spouse when you marry. But, imagine this is the exception, then we have to question, who changes the name? Night elves are sort of matriarchal, so makes sense that the husband would change the name, but at the same time, it could be the wife to change the name, though this idea has less strength overall,but we see that with the high elf bloodline, but they could habe another tradition, but one thing is sure, they either keep the last name or change it, adding an extra name isnā€™t an option, every night elf we have seen that i recall has only two names, name and lastname. If any of the spouses change their name, then the question of the offspring is easily solvable, the baby just takes the family name at this point.

With all that said, here comes the elephant in the room, what if Malfurion and Tyrande marriage isnā€™t the exception, but the rule, what if your lastname doesnā€™t change when you marry as a kaldorei? That brings another question on the table, whose name the kids get? The mom, the dad? Or maybe daughters get the name of their mom and sons get their dadā€™s name? Or the opposite? Or, hear me out, thats the crazy idea, if you get every kaldorei last name, they are two words together, whisper wind, storm rage, shadow song, fel song, summer moon, what if the kids take each word from their parents last name? Like, a malfurion and tyrande kid would get the name stormwind (lel) or the name whisperrage? Thats silly, but feels fitting in a sense.

Anyways, these are just my ramblings, anyone got ideas?

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Hmm. Well, I suppose the best way to figure out the answer is to look for other characters with the name last name, preferably of different genders. If both characters are related and have the same last name and are different gender, then we can assume Malfurion and Tyrande are the exception; if theyā€™re not, the most common situation would have male children with the fatherā€™s last name and female children with the mothers. This does not address whether kaldorie use the maternal family name or paternal however. Let me and my cough syrup thinkā€¦

Fandral Staghelm and his son share surnames, and Valstannā€™s wife Leyara isnā€™t given a surname. Valstann had a daughter, but I cannot find any reference to her surname. So we at least have evidence that male children carry on the name of the father. Unless, again, Fandral too is an exception.

Both Maiev and Jarrod share a surname, though we do not know which parent held that name. It does answer the question if children hold the surname of their similar-gender parent though, so itā€™s looking stonger that marriage usually comes with a name-taking.

The cough syrup tells me that the surname taken will probably be based on social standing. Rather than being exceptions, Malfurion and Tyrande being in very high social positions would mean if my theory is correct, they would both keep their surname. Likewise, Fandral being pretty important himself would hold the surname for his family and pass it down to his son. All the evidence is purely circumstantial, but itā€™s about what we have.

But this is all a theory.

A cough syrup theory!!

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Normally Iā€™d say they take the womanā€™s name because matriarchy. But Staghelm is a good example of other stuff going on.

We also have Illysanna Ravencrest, daughter of Kurā€™talos. Though she was born before the Sundering. Alongside other Ravencrest who, men and women, keep that name.

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I was somehow under the impression that surnames among the lower castes of Kaldorei were earned via special accomplishments/milestones/associations in their lives (similar to Orcs) and were passed down through their lineage (on either side) whereas Highborne would typically keep their surnames due to prestige and status. Now I canā€™t find a source for that so that might just be something I made up in my own headā€¦

TBH any lore they may have had for it probably goes out the window since typical human surname convention has kindā€™ve bled in throughout the years. I wouldnā€™t expect Blizzard to remember to uphold something as subtle as this in the lore when they miss massive obvious gaps in their more major plots.

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If youā€™re looking for lore set rules, thereā€™s absolutely no consistency. Azshara and Xavius for instance, didnā€™t have surnames, and Iā€™m not sure Ravencrest had a first one.

There were at least however three Staghelms, Fandral, the son who died in the war ofthe Burning Sands, and another Staghelm of absolutely no importance who manned a tower at Silithus and was apparantly killed when the Sword descended.

However, you had a complete Night Elf family in Astranaar, mother, father, child, with no surnames at all.

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It was feeling like a long readā€¦. but that was worth it at the end, there.

Boy, would that ignite the Nelf fan base. They might spontaneously combust if that last child from Teldrassil (ā€œFinelā€ or ā€œFennelā€ or whatever) took on the last name ā€œStormwindā€ as per this Night Elven convention.

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Iā€™d pay to see that.

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His first name was Kurā€™talos

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War of the Shifting Sands.

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Another example is Pelturas and his daughter Relara Whitemoon.

I donā€™t think thereā€™s any concrete lore on the source and inheritance of night elf surnames - I personally like to think that the night elvesā€™ surnames, being descriptive, are based on some trait or accomplishment of the person, and children use the most recognizable or their favorite surname of their parents until they earn one of their own.

Out-of-setting, shared surnames serve the purpose of letting players know two NPCs are related, so the writers are unlikely to want to complicate that by having complex marriage/children rules for surname inheritance. Thatā€™s one reason I like the idea of canonizing the concept of ā€˜the most story-relevant surname is the one that gets used for family membersā€™.

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Hot Take: Elven family names are fundamentally illogical as they are not in elvish, but the first names are. This is a strange D&D convention that Metzen adopted. The most hilarious attempt to justify this was when they said Sunstrider was in fact Darnassian and meant ā€œhe who walks the dayā€.

Come on now, blizzard.

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True, but this is a question of inheritance of the name, so the language of the name itself doesnā€™t matter.

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I suppose my point was that if they cannot even get the logic for the names right, how do you expect them to have consistent inheritance logic.

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Maybe a hot topic to say here but I donā€™t really think Night Elves are a ā€œMatriarchalā€ society the way we tend to think of it IRL.

Itā€™s not that women rule over men because they are viewed as superior but rather it all came to be because of The Sundering. Before that, there were many males in positions of power and nobility. The only real rule was regarding The Sisterhood of Elune where they only admited women.

Azshara was Queen but there is no real evidence of a rule saying only women were allowed for that position and I can even speculate, because she was so powerful and beloved, she was the one to take that position unchallenged.

The real gender division came after The Sundering because circumstances sorta demanded it but still to this day if you go to several key kaldorei cities you usually see a male night elf as head of that place.

So back to the Surename Topic itā€™s probably left up to the couple in question to choose which name to pass on.

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Weā€™ve had this topic many times before. Everyone brings in their own definition of ā€œmatriarchialā€ to support their ideasā€¦ Even though the definition is not so rigid.

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This same thing applies with their settlementsā€™ names randomly juggling between Common and Darnassian.

In fairness, we also occasionally see night elves with seemingly untranslated Darnassian surnames, like the Narassins or the Edunes.

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Everything before Azashara is a giant void, for kaldorei history. It sort of goes Elves exist, a large period of stuff, Azashara takes power and expands from a small kingdom into an arcane fueled empire. Trying to work out anything in that gap is not possible, so all we can go with is what we have of Azasharaā€™s empire.

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Matriarchal at a minimum assumes the same kind of dominance of the female gender that Patriarchal does with the male counterpart. So far the only true matriarchal society are the Maruk Centaur who value female children considerably more than men. But they are a mild matriarchy in that thereā€™s very little sign of overall gender repression.

Count your lucky stars that we arenā€™t dealing with Andoriansā€™ five-part gender system.

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Blood Trolls seem Female dominated if not out right matriarchal. Certainly more matriarchal than the kaldorei.

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Considering that most of our interaction with them either as Horde or Alliance is at sword, spear, or arrow point, I didnā€™t feel that I had the qualitative data to make a conclusion.

And youā€™ve read my opinion on the kaldoreiā€™s supposed matriarchy. Azshara didnā€™t make her empire a matriarchy any more than the Elizabeths, the Victoria, or Thatcher made England.