3 ms·
Interestingly enough, having multiple names for different situations was commonplace before bureaucracy wanted standardized personal and surnames for better rec
by BitwiseFool 6y ago
Interestingly enough, having multiple names for different situations was commonplace before bureaucracy wanted standardized personal and surnames for better record keeping and taxation. Names used to be a lot more flexible and contextual before statecraft.
- mariojv 6y agoHuh, I wasn't aware of this. Do you have any good articles or books you could recommend about that phenomenon?
- BitwiseFool 6y agoI learned about this from a section in James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State. Sadly I don't have a specific page number or citation to provide you with. But the section talked about how families were given names based on profession (Smith, Baker, Carpenter, .etc), description (Short, Young, etc.), or general location (Glenn, Brook, etc.) and all of this was done to simplify taxation and get a better command of resource extraction. This phenomenon is not unique to the West and was done in China as well.