I'd say it depends on how the animal in question perceived the world and how their "language" worked. A neo-canid would therefore probably have a name that could be a description of smell, haptics and noise. Something akin to "Sharp Strawberry" or "Old Blood". No idea on hominids, avians, cetaceans and octopods though. Any ideas?

How an uplift or AGI is named will be dependent on the culture it is tied to more than it will be on their species. Even in modern culture, your name style is largely dependent on where you come from, not who you are. Those born in eastern-based cultures will have surnames first, rather than as last names. As such, uplifts who live amongst a Japanese refugee habitat might have a Japanese-style name. On the other hand, Mercurials might have names in wholly different context, due to their desire to be more inhuman. I'd imagine that it wouldn't be all that common for an uplift octopus' name to be only "pronounceable" in a visual language based around their ability to change colors. It should be noted that natural octopi are solitary animals, and as such don't really need names for their non-social lifestyle... so Mercurial octopi uplifts might take that to heart and discard the necessity for names. Other uplifts might have even more difficult-to-pronounce names based on whale song, scent, or other such things. AGIs might be named based on filename or directory label, rather than any personal concept. Their names might be a combination of unpronounceable letters and numbers which are simply listed in order rather than spoken as a word.

GreyBrother wrote:

"Hi, my Name ist SysDir01 Node #534 of Extropia." And when it leaves Extropia, it's name does change... is actually doable, since ID is coupled with the brainwaves, rather than names (and the ability to verify it) or looks.

ID is coupled to name as well as a number of other potential ways to verify who you are, like public key encryption codes. Remember that brainwave scans are only primarily used for identification in high-security locations, and not for every single checkpoint you might pass. Most people probably don't even have a brainwave scan on file.

Decivre wrote:

How an uplift or AGI is named will be dependent on the culture it is tied to more than it will be on their species. Even in modern culture, your name style is largely dependent on where you come from, not who you are. Those born in eastern-based cultures will have surnames first, rather than as last names. As such, uplifts who live amongst a Japanese refugee habitat might have a Japanese-style name. On the other hand, Mercurials might have names in wholly different context, due to their desire to be more inhuman. I'd imagine that it wouldn't be all that common for an uplift octopus' name to be only "pronounceable" in a visual language based around their ability to change colors. It should be noted that natural octopi are solitary animals, and as such don't really need names for their non-social lifestyle... so Mercurial octopi uplifts might take that to heart and discard the necessity for names. Other uplifts might have even more difficult-to-pronounce names based on whale song, scent, or other such things. AGIs might be named based on filename or directory label, rather than any personal concept. Their names might be a combination of unpronounceable letters and numbers which are simply listed in order rather than spoken as a word.

I suppose an AGI could have a name similar to a MAC address. Something that is fully unique to that AGI.

Quincey Forder wrote:

That may be for Mercurials who clearly state their inhumanity but for those who don't want to stand out? Beside, there's the playability to consider, or the lack of computer science knowledge. ie I have not the slightest idea of what a MAC adress is, or what it looks like

A MAC address (or Media Access Control address) is a unique identifier on every piece of hardware (similar to a fingerprint on humans). It usually has a format of ( ##:##:##:##:##:## ) with the numbers being hex based (ie 0-9, A-F). Interesting note if you open up a terminal/control panel on your computer and type in ifconfig (ipconfig on Windows) you can find out the MAC address for your computer, your network card, and any other telecommunications in your machine.

Quincey Forder wrote:

why would a sentient being use that for a name it'd be like given a matricule in a jail, or a camp, and saying "this is my name, this is who and what I am" I'd find it quite demening, insulting and offensive to be called by number, the perfect exemple of human ascerting dominion upon digitalkind

You could view it that way, but MAC addresses are derived "organically" from the specifics of the hardware's conductivity and resistance. From a logical point of view (something that would be natural to an AGI) it could be seen as perfection. But they may also want a name like a hash code (a hash code is a unique key for getting stored information from a database, it is important because a really good hash code is hard to reproduce, but certain info can only be retrieved with that code) for all we know.

I agree with you here. There will probably AGIs and uplifts who choose names for "meaning" and then there will be the ones who just want it to "sound" cool. Just like with humans. And if i look at online handles some people (myself included) have, it gives a good sense on how a name is chosen. Now, the Thread title is also Exotic Transhuman Cultures. Any ideas on how a community of Uplifts and AGIs acts differently from regular humans?

I like the idea of a Surya being called Pride, Patience, Perseverance (in song of course). It has a nice ring to it.

TBRMInsanity wrote:

Neo-Avians would, I imagine, have short song like names (that would be anglonized by transhumans), so you would end up with names like Hirororo, or Turita. Wales and dolphins already have long complex songs to identify themselves in the wild.

Researching musical conlangs like [url=http://www.eaiea.com/]Eaiea[/url] or [url=http://www.omniglot.com/writing/solresol.htm]Solresol[/url] might be helpful here. These languages may also hold aesthetic appeal to characters who are sound/visual synaesthetic.

TBRMInsanity wrote:

Octopuses are different. In the wild most arthropods (including most octopuses) communicate through visual queues. I image that most Octopus names would be descriptions of these visual queues (Rocky Lumps, Shimmering Light, or Sandy Stone).

Octopi are not arthropods. That said, they may also describe who they are using animated patterns displayed on the skins of their morphs. I just had this mental image of a diplomat in a bipedal morph with chameleon skin walking around naked and flashing abstract coloured patterns at a group of neo-cephalopods at a meeting.

Names can be very strange even today. Here is a great post (and some interesting examples among the comments) about this issue: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about... As I see it, AGIs often have exceedingly odd self-selected names privately, but often sensibly decide to have a name the transhumans can call it. "Hi! My name is _/|\_/|\_, but you can call me Joe." The key part is the culture: names are part of the culture-bound interface between individuals and their peers, and hence set by the culture. So culture experimentation might often make new naming conventions bloom. Maybe people's name become tied with their rep, so that "Mere Bill Johnson" becomes "Glorious Bill Johnson of the XP 47 Shuttle" after doing a good deed. Or names are actually physical *things* you carry around or compile as needed.

UpliftedOctopi wrote:

On a different note, what about scumborn names? Any insight?

I always pictured that scumborn had "hacker" like names that change from time to time. These names would reflect how the person views themselves and their role in their society. I imagine that an individual would suffer a Rep loss when they change their name (as they would need to re-affirm to all their contacts that they have changed their name) but there is little holding back individuals in these communities from doing pretty much anything they want to do.

So I'm reading Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds, and they have a blurb from what is basically a synergist about her name I thought people might like to read: "I told you: it's nothing you could understand. We have our own names now, terms of address that can only be communicated in the transenlightenment. My name is a flow of experiential symbols, a string of interiorised qualia, an expression of a particular dynamic state that has only ever happened under a conjunction of rare physical conditions in the atmosphere of a particular kind of gas giant planet. I chose it myself. It's considered very beautiful and a little melancholy, like a haiku in five dimensions." I thought that was kinda cool.

Eric Schmidt suggested that in the future we will have to change our names due to all our youthful indiscretions online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-will-have-to-... Maybe that is actually sensible. Some societies having regular name- and identity-changes. Also, during the Fall plenty of people might have decided to change their names and identities. It was a good opportunity.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:

(Actually, thinking on it, something like 80% of my characters regularly change names to lose a pesky history.)

NobodyScores has some good advice: just change your name to John or Jane Doe.

Arenamontanus wrote:

Eric Schmidt suggested that in the future we will have to change our names due to all our youthful indiscretions online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-will-have-to-...

Schmidt is missing the big picture. He makes the same mistakes all past generations make-he takes current morals and values of society for granted. It's quite possible that those youthfull indiscretions will be perfectly normal for people 30-40 years in the future. So he makes the same assumption very old SF authors made:that technology changes but society stays the same. Who knows what social norms and values will be destroyed by the youth which started its life immersed in the Web? My prediction-acceptence of porn as normal cultural medium, and yet loss of its popular status(since most people by the age of 25 will have seen everything);shift to more stable relationships while at the same time accepting sexual adventurism of both partners outside the relationship(even shared adventurism).Loss of shock news-I mean who out of the current generation will care in 20 years that somebody got drunk at a party? Internet is changing the way people interact and pursue their lives in ways nobody had forseen, in part because while in the past for example the couples interested in swinging had to hid their interests or seek them in various underground clubs and niche places, they now can just browse the web and find thousands of similiar couples like them. Same goes for every other minority group. So Schmidt's words might be taken with a smirk on the face 30-40 years from now, just like the words of moralists from XIX century would be today about equal rights for women or swimingsuits. Of course that doesn't mean that some extreme conservative groups won't emerge as a reaction to this.

Quote:

Maybe that is actually sensible. Some societies having regular name- and identity-changes. Also, during the Fall plenty of people might have decided to change their names and identities. It was a good opportunity.

Yes, that's a very good idea for a Player Character. But also-for a campaign. Some former governments/hypercorps might have used the opportunity to infiltrate rival camps with sleeper agents during the Fall.

Byzantine Laser wrote:

Arenamontanus wrote:

Eric Schmidt suggested that in the future we will have to change our names due to all our youthful indiscretions online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-will-have-to-... Maybe that is actually sensible. Some societies having regular name- and identity-changes.

It already happens on an internet-only level, which makes for an interesting phenomenon by itself. Of all the people I know who grew up using the internet, the vast majority (including myself) have changed their common screen names once or twice. Because you really don't want to get associated with that one Sailor Moon fanfic you wrote when you were 14 when your fiancee Googles your name when you're 29. Similarly, I've taken up the habit of 'partitioning' my screen names... one that I use for anything where my real-life info will likely come up, one that I use for online gaming, one that I use for online tabletop stuff, and so on. That way, in the worst-case scenario where I need to totally cut off all ties with somebody from one of those areas, I can do so with minimal impact to other parts of my life... not to mention that I can pick and choose which screen names I inform somebody of to control what they're able to find out about my online activities.

I actually had an idea for a campaign surrounding people whose job it is to clean up reputation messes. You'd come to them with your Sailor Moon/Bleach slash-fiction studded past and pay them to remove or redirect traces it was ever you. Thus, your SMOF rep won't take a hit for writing slash fic, etc. and you're backstopped against further investigation.