Alicornutopia

Kappa wrote:Somebody should start a Clever Ways To Circumvent Fairies thread. Somebody, go do that.

I am somebody.
EDIT:
So the Names setting scares the hell out of me, and this kind of discussion is interesting.

As somebody in a position to name somebody else, invent a name, call them by that name once, and then forget that name and forever after call them something normal for your society.

As a vassal, things are a lot harder.

Yeah. I have actually spent some time idly contemplating how I'd invent a mortal society that, for unrelated reasons of their own, would end up with absolutely nobody knowing their or anyone else's fairy-valid name. Ideally, given how fairies guessing mortal names works, the discarded initial name would consist of a single syllable of a type not normally found in actually-used names. I haven't come up with anything totally solid yet, but it's on my mind.

If magic, features of the universe, or features of the species are allowed:

All fetuses are telepathic with each other, and as a consequence acquire (unpronounceable) names for each other. When they are born they lose this ability, and their thoughts are discombobulated enough by the event (other minds aren't helping them think any more) that they don't remember enough to be able to translate the names consistently even if they recognize a person.

(If a mother went through their entire pregnancy without being in whatever range of anyone else, this would not work. But this also has negative effects on the developing child, so nobody does that.)

Ooh, I like it.

A society with sufficiently ritualized "private names" and "public names" (ala Elcenian vampires) could work as well, though less effectively.

How about a society where a baby is (private-)named the first sound they make?

WAAA would get ~40% of the population?

But tone and length are very important in the namespeech of babies.

How much discernment do you need to name a baby? If we could something like "I name that baby that is in that crib but I can't see this random syllable" it could be possible to have it done by someone completely unrelated. That way no one knows which baby got the name, and people don't even know who named them.