"Yes, although it's not a strict ruling, you know. But usually, the father-name is given at birth, or close to it. It's no unusual for it to be... well, like how Feanaro named all his sons after his father, in some way. Although most people are not quite so... pointed in the sort of names they choose."

She rolls her eyes at the memory. Honestly, naming their firstborn "Third Finwe" just to spite his brother....

"A mother-name might be given at birth, if the mother has a particular strong insight, but is often given later - mother-names are often prophetic, or at least, they hold something of what a mother sees in her child, or hopes for their life. Our Curufin, here - his father-name is Curufinwe, his own father's name, you see. But I named him Atarinke - Little Father - because I looked at him and I knew that he would be a wonderful father one day, as his father was in turn."

She sometimes wishes she had not, because few had realised what she intended, and Curufin had taken both his names and tried to make himself a carbon copy of his father, and she knows how badly the failing hurt him.

"How do your people name their children?"