ladyvean asked:
Does the Garashir baby have a name? :)
el-im answered:
Ah!! I have so been dreading thinking about this bc I feel like I am so awful at naming… not to mention I feel like whenever I think of names it brings up this discussion of age–did they adopt their child when it was young so they could change it (I’d love to think of a cardassian running around the station with a human name selected in Julian’s honor, particularly if Elim was the one to actually choose it) or was it old enough at its time of adoption to have grown up a little with its name yet? (Then I find myself down a rabbit hole wondering if the little one might have a last name of Garak or Bashir or if they’d want to hyphenate or if either of them changed theirs…)
That said!! Scrolling through a list of Cardassian names on Memory Alpha my favorites have been Iloja (with “Iloja of Prim” having been Jadzia’s favorite Cardassian poet… who Tobin met while Iloja was living in exile–which I think is–pardon the pun–poetic), Mila or Enabran (both of which obviously house a lot of weight but which I think of sort of tenderly–I love the idea of Elim honoring his parents and almost… helping set their names/legacy into a straighter path undisturbed by The Order/the entire concept of parenting being something remedial/existing as a parallel to his career as a gardener coaxing new life into the world), Tolan (Garak’s biological uncle who raised him as a son)… and if going in the direction of human names I’m quite fond of Elam (as a human counterpart to Elim–Arabic, meaning ‘highland’), Badar (Arabic, meaning “full moon” thus being appropriately space-related, and sounding vaguely Cardassian a la Damar/Pa’Dar/Hadar), Kahlil (because I love the thought that Julian read Gibran’s “On Children” and, considering his relationship with his parents, was moved by “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself / They come through you but not from you / And though they are with you yet they belong not to you / You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. / You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow”)… basically I have no answers but a lot of feelings. :/ I am open to suggestions if anyone has any!!
