I'm working on a short story for Steerpike's anthology of Mesoamerican fantasy, Songs of the Great Cycle (LOVE this title, btw) which can be found here - Long Count Press
Anyway, short story long, in our urban fantasy world Quetzalcoatl are one of our 6 dragon varieties, so we wanted to explore what their world would look like in a Pre-Columbian Aztec environment. We honestly haven't spent much time world building with them, mostly leaving it as a "Quetzalcoatl's are strange and isolationist" sort of thing and leaving it at that - but Steerpike has inspired me.
What's bringing me up short are names. With our other dragon varieties, they tend to either borrow from the mortal cultures they live alongside for their naming conventions, or they use draconic names that are then translated due to the fact that they cannot be pronounced in their human forms (human mouths lack certain structures to fully enunciate the sounds) - so, for example, the Dragon Queen of Beijing has taken the name Mei-Lien, while the Dragon King of Tokyo is commonly called Death Comes Softly.
Now here lies the crux of my problem. My initial research is indicating that Aztec naming conventions were both complex and meaningful, indicating power, position, and maybe even history. So, when naming a Quetzal, (or a mortal servant) would it be recommended to use the more ethnic, atmospheric Nahuatl (the name of the language) name, such as Itzpapalotl? Or the name in translation as the characters would have heard and understood it, which is Obsidian Butterfly?
Anyway, short story long, in our urban fantasy world Quetzalcoatl are one of our 6 dragon varieties, so we wanted to explore what their world would look like in a Pre-Columbian Aztec environment. We honestly haven't spent much time world building with them, mostly leaving it as a "Quetzalcoatl's are strange and isolationist" sort of thing and leaving it at that - but Steerpike has inspired me.
What's bringing me up short are names. With our other dragon varieties, they tend to either borrow from the mortal cultures they live alongside for their naming conventions, or they use draconic names that are then translated due to the fact that they cannot be pronounced in their human forms (human mouths lack certain structures to fully enunciate the sounds) - so, for example, the Dragon Queen of Beijing has taken the name Mei-Lien, while the Dragon King of Tokyo is commonly called Death Comes Softly.
Now here lies the crux of my problem. My initial research is indicating that Aztec naming conventions were both complex and meaningful, indicating power, position, and maybe even history. So, when naming a Quetzal, (or a mortal servant) would it be recommended to use the more ethnic, atmospheric Nahuatl (the name of the language) name, such as Itzpapalotl? Or the name in translation as the characters would have heard and understood it, which is Obsidian Butterfly?