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Tom Sewell

Magus' Real Name

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I've asserted in a Story thread that "Magus" isn't really Magus' real name but a title. I've taken to calling him "Magus E.", assuming that as an alternate Elliot he would have an "E" name. Here are some suggestions.

  • English royals (Kings, Princes, etc): Ethelstan, Ethelbert, Egbert, Edward, Edmund, Edwin 
  • Eitel, Edsel (these are variations on the Hun known as Atilla)
  • Engelbert
  • Elmer  (Wascally Wabbit optional)

Post your own opinions and own name suggestions here.

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I would say that Magus is his real name, because it not being so would then imply the possibility of Terra not being her real name either. Dan giving them those names essentially says that AU counterparts don't HAVE to have the same name (or approximate variant) as the main universe character (Though Terra would be considered an approximate variant)

There are a number of person's names that are derived from titles or occupations (Smith, Baker, King) mostly as last names, but some do work as first names as well, so it would't be unheard of for Magus to be a given name.

Granted, Susan's first name is Tiffany and she insistes on using her middle name and Dan did name Magus after that character from Chrono Trigger and it wasn't that character's real name, but I don't see Dan using though elements for his Magus.

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21 minutes ago, Scotty said:

There are a number of person's names that are derived from titles or occupations (Smith, Baker, King) mostly as last names, but some do work as first names as well, so it would't be unheard of for Magus to be a given name.

True enough, but not all that commonplace. "Magus" is actually the singular of "Magi", a title that originally applied to Zoroastrian priests. This was the ancient religion of Persia, AKA Iran, and it remained so until the Arab conquest and the suppression of that religion by Muslim clerics. Zoroastrianism survives mostly in India now among a small population known as Parsees, and may have influenced Tibetan Buddhism. Both cultures do not burn or bury their dead but leave them exposed. The Parsees have even developed a breed of tamed vultures to remove the flesh from the bones, and since they do not revere the bones either, many mounted skeletons, particularly older ones, found in the United States are from Parsees.

And, yes, "Magic" does derive from the same root. Other ancient peoples saw the Zoroastrians as most peculiar and associated them with sorcery.

Anyway, I'm still putting my cookies on "Magus E". At the very least, it could give Magus another silly name for Dan to reveal.

BTW, Genghis Khan was a title; the man's name was 'Temujin", more or less the Mongol equivalent of "Smith".

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more or less the Mongol equivalent of "Smith".

Which, including near-synonyms (e.g. "Wright") and translations to other languages, is probably the most common surname in the world.

You wouldn't think so at first glance - there were, for example a lot more farmers than smiths - but surnames are used to *distinguish* people. When 90%+ of the men are farmers, and 98% of the men in villages are farmers, a villager does not get named "farmer". A villager who has just moved to a city might get named "farmer" and then the name might stick even after he's citified; or someone living in a city might choose to earn their keep by farming a patch of ground just outside the city, and this unusual (for a city-dweller) occupation might get them the name "farmer"...

Similarly, place-names becoming surnames mostly happened two ways: (1) the feudal lords of the place, over time, forget their old surname (if they ever had one) and adopt the place-name; (2) someone moves from the place and, in their new home, their place of origin is distinctive ("Jack, you know, the one from London, not Jack the sprat fisher").

On the other hand, while practically every bronze-age-or-higher-tech village needs a metalsmith, a lot has to happen before a village needs two metalsmiths. (And the metalsmiths are probably the first smiths requiring sufficient specialized skill and training, and having sufficient demand, that smithing normally becomes their full-time occupation.) Thus, the name is both common and distinctive.

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While alternates certainly can have different names (Terra is probably Terra's real name, Nioi and SL Kaoli are alternates, and then of course there's Elliot/Beta!Ellen/SL!Ellen and Tedd/various Tesses), it wouldn't surprise me if Magus' real name is Elliot.

21 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Obviously Magus' real name is Agiltanius Aristophanes Aloysius Antoninus Abraxas-Abalamahalamatandra. :demonicduck:

Or maybe Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs?

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Well Tom, you were right on the whole "Magus E." thinking. But we were all (well, except for Hack who didn't go with E name) way off on what the E was.

 

Half a box of cookies good?

 

I mean to even guess that Magus was a nickname had to be a longshot worth more than just 1 cookie.

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Somewhat wildspec: "Ellen" is in fact a female name in Magus' world as well, which is why as soon as he got a non-female nickname (which came because he was the first in his early-education classes to start showing magic ability) he grabbed it and stuck with it.

(My sister's brother-in-law, everyone thinks his name is Danny. In reality, his name is Shirley. And there's "Jr." stuck on the end.)

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8 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Are we considering a full-blown "Boy Named Sue" scenario here?

That would be my bet, that or "Ellen" comes from a universe with slightly different names than the EGS universe.  Even money on which one.

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My bet is on him having been assigned female at birth, and using magic to change sexes later in life, but not bothering to change his legal name.

At any rate, note how he says that "people in this universe might find [the nickname Magus] less strange than my actual name", with emphasis on the "this" in "this universe". This implies that whatever the explanation is, people in his own universe wouldn't find it strange.

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