Tīnonu, People of the Valley (ˈti:no.nu)
Founding their home in a true cradle of civilization, the tīnonu became a power to behold early in the First Age. What began as a fragile new beginning in the Nīwulai Valley became a civilization of a million voices.
The tīnonu knew of the power names held, thus even the poorest of beggars would often have a name fit for a king. Name was a story of the person's past, present and future, and thus changed accordingly throughout their lives. Nicknames and titles were added onto one's birth name, to the point that what was once one or two words could become an entire page's worth of names just for the one person.
While the names a person might receive throughout their lives were more descriptive of their actions (or lack thereof), the one given during birth usually focused more on the parents' wishes for the child's future, or sometimes focused on a trait the newborn would have. For example, most of the tīnonu had black or extremely dark brown hair, yet sometimes, very rarely, a child would be born with blond or even silvery white hair. These children were often named "sun-kissed", or "moon-blessed", or any of the other thousand words the parents had to describe how the Celestials favored their child over others. Often these children were gifted to the temples; those with blond hair to the Temples of Sun, and those with silvery white to the Temples of Moon.
This "gifting of a child" was not a law anywhere in Nīwulai Valley, yet depending on the region it could be about as optional as giving protection money to the local brigands was.
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