Given Name Traditions on Guion's Reach

Of course, every colonist has a name. When it comes to given names, or first names, the majority of Europans have been named after a certain pattern that was established generations prior. The significance of that is a brevity of identity that is no longer necessary but is still appreciated and celebrated, with most given names only needing five letters of the Latin alphabet to spell. It is considered extremely self-important to name a child something over that threshold. It doesn't stop some from doing so, whether to be intentionally garish or merely unaware of how gauche the name is perceived.

History

When the colony was first established with the original 13 explorers, naming colonists was the farthest thought from anyone's mind. There was no need to name any of the immigrating colonists. When Paulina Gutierrez gave birth to a baby girl in 2387, she decided to name her Loa. There were two reasons for this.
Gutierrez first wanted to honor her homeland of Chile, and the beauty contained in the country, by naming her daughter after one of the more prominent rivers that flows through it. Second, there had been some concern about the ability to have enough storage for all the data necessary to maintain the colony long term, which included biographical data on all inhabitants. On instinct, Gutierrez thought a shorter name would help and felt setting the precedent may work to prevent data storage shortages in the future. Although not all the parents who gave birth in the next year followed her suit, Gutierrez did set a standard that most would honor.
The most popular names tended to refer to nature, specifically features found on Earth that immigrating colonists knew they would never experience again. Names would reference weather patterns, geographical features, flora and fauna in a variety of different languages. To help with keeping these names unique, many would shorten the words to five characters or less in the Latin alphabet, although accent marks were never a concern for those who wished to keep the pronunciation closer to their native tongue.
After several decades, this was sometimes mixed with names that eluded to scientific concepts, usually for a colonist who really wanted their child to reflect their work. Others kept to names that were still of Earth, the ones of their ancestors or even the original colonists that immigrated just a few generations prior. These names are still very much in the minority compared to the nature based names that reference nature concepts.

Sample of Nature-Influenced Names

• Fleur
• Sasum
• Puna
• Mauna
• Tames
• Waj
• Jaro
• Niger
• Oka
• Snah

Sample of Science-Influenced Names

• Thiry
• Mitro
• Jashe
• Yotta

Sample of Earth-Influenced Names

• Dale
• Nia
• Thur
• Elle