: Apparently, the Heron Guard have some calendar they use.
: When a Warrior becomes a Heron Guard, the day he is
: initiated, he loses his past name and takes that date
: on the Heron Guard Calendar as his new name,
: essentially reborn as a Heron Guard. Every Heron Guard
: name starts with a number, presumably the day, then
: two or three more words, though it may just be just
: two phrases. Could those two others be month and year?
: I was hoping there was a definitive answer and not to
: bring forward conjecture, but does anyone know the
: story or have a good theory?
Prior to the Acit El calendar (the modern Myth one) which became widely used at the start of the Wind Age, the Cath Bruig used a calendar in which each year had an individualized name, probably (guesswork) derived from astronomical phenomenena--Flint Deer, Eagle Falling Sun, and so on.
The Heron Guards have preserved this calendar, and each new Heron Guard is given the year of his initiation as a surname, and his number within his initiate class as a first name. So, for instance, Five Motion Bloody Jaguar was the fifth initiate in the class of new Guards in the year of Motion Bloody Jaguar, whenever that was.
(This all comes from GURPS--except the bit about how they named their years, which is theory. However they did it, it was a standardized and easily duplicable process, since the Heron Guards have been able to keep figuring out the old-style name of the year even in this modern period.
--SiliconDream
