True Name - Folklore and Fantasy

Folklore and Fantasy

According to practises in folklore, knowledge of a true name allows one to magically affect a person or being. It is stated that knowing someone's, or something's, true name therefore gives the person (who knows the true name) power over them. This effect is used in many tales, such as in the German fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin - within Rumpelstiltskin and all its variants, the girl can free herself from the power of a supernatural helper who demands her child by learning its name.

A legend of Saint Olaf recounts how a troll built a church for the saint at a fantastic speed and price, but the saint was able to free himself by learning the troll's name during a walk in the woods. Similarly, the belief that children who were not baptised at birth were in particular danger of having the fairies kidnap them and leave changelings in their place may stem from their unnamed state. In the Scandinavian variants of the ballad Earl Brand, the hero can defeat all his enemies until the heroine, running away with him, pleads with him by name to spare her youngest brother.

In Scandinavian beliefs, more magical beasts, such as the Nix, could be defeated by calling their name.

This belief is employed in many fantasy works. Bilbo Baggins, in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, uses a great deal of trickery to keep the dragon, Smaug, from learning his name; even the sheltered hobbit realises that revealing his name would be very foolish. Likewise, in Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea canon, and specifically in her seminal short story The Rule of Names, power over dragons, and additionally, men, is conferred by the use of a true name. True names and speech are the basis for magic in Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, where indeed, it is simply referred to as "The Speech". The concept is also prominently present in Vernor Vinge's famous story True Names, the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, and The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss. Though never a bedrock element of the game, multiple variants of magic utilizing or grounded in the power of true names have appeared in the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. In Jim Butchers' The Dresden Files a wizard or other magical being can gain power over anyone by knowing their name. This requires the invoker to have heard the name spoken by its owner. Human names change with their nature so they generally decay after a time.