i'm not familiar with the temeraire novels, but based on your description the naming system makes total sense to me - and definitely sounds more natural to nati

i'm not familiar with the temeraire novels, but based on your description the naming system makes total sense to me - and definitely sounds more natural to native ears. it looks like they're using personal name conventions for the dragons rather than species names. for example, in the name 龙玉平, 龙 would be the surname/family name, and 玉平 would be the given name. the 'family name' is shared amongst all dragons, while dragons of the same species share the same first syllable in their given names. this mirrors how chinese siblings will often share a syllable in their given names (sometimes known as 'generation names'). not sure if any of this is intentional, of course - but from my perspective, those names work well to humanize the dragons.