Repetition

[ArenRax]

I have found that a name for an order can have multiple meanings. example: the Wardens
1st meaning: a group of dwarves gifted with powerful magi to gaurd the realms of man,mer, and dwarf.
2nd meaning: the Order Of Wardens of the Nexus gaurd the prisons of the most evil and powerful denizens.
3rd meaning: A gret Order that Watches the Realms and is gifted with the blood of the god Viell.

My question is: is it Okay to use the same name in different books or stories and also is it a bad thing to have multiple orders and Guild in one book/story?

 

[Svrtnsse]

The important thing is to avoid confusion. As long as you do that, you're fine.

You can build your worlds and name the organisations in them in any way you want. There really aren't any rules for what you can or can't do. That's what makes it so fun.
However, if you're going to write a story set in a world you have created, you should make sure to write it in such a way that's it's easy for the reader to understand what's going on. If your story has several different orders (which is fine) and they all have the same name (which is also fine), you're likely going to confuse your readers (which is not fine - unless that's what you're going for).

So, in the same story, try and give different things different names.
If you're writing several different stories though, and if they're unrelated to each other, it's fine to re-use names between them.

 

[Terry Greer]

Svrtnesse is spot on.

The problem is confusion.
Hitchcock wrote somewhere that the last thing you need to do to your reader is create confusion because if their confused they're not emoting. Having a mystery is one thing but having the same term mean multiple things is only really of use if its handled clearly or as a piece of a puzzle.

That's why you get terms such as 'Grey Wardens', River Warden' or 'Wardens of the North' because as a handle it distinguishes them from simple uses of the term warden and qualifies the term. Once you've done that you can go back to just using the simpler term warden.

however if you ever get two different wardens inthe same scene it gives you an extra handle to distinguish them (and you'll need it if you don't want your readers to go mad figuring out which one is being referred to).