Renomination

The Renomination was a process that occured in Angeltir  in the decades after the end of the Quirinal Empire in 1 BU. In this process, the people of Angeltir deliberately renamed many places (such as cities, rivers, geographical features) in order to remove Quirinal terms and replace them with more "authentic" names.

This process was undertaken most enthusiastically in the southern part of the island, where resistance to the empire was always most active. The Renomination had less impact in the central part of Angeltir, where Quirinal culture was more entrenched, and largely irrelevant in the north where Quirinal influence was minor. Note that the process itself is seen as a spontaneously response to the changing circumstances rather than a deliberate undertaking for a political agenda and it is historians who have since called it the Renomination.

A number of strategies were used in the Renomination. Where possible, the people of Angeltir attempted to revive ancient names, some of which had remained in unofficial or vernacular use. For example, the Gormpikes (lit. "Giant's Peaks") was revived in favour of Quirinal "Orimontes". In many cases, however, the ancient names were not clearly remembered, if at all. The people of Angeltir made up completely new names for some places, some of which were descriptive (such as the coastal town of Dumpney which had been formerly known as Terminum), or reinterpreted Quirinal etymology (not always accurately) to come up with a Gallish name. For example, the river Nen (a Quirinal word of obscure meaning) was often called the Serpens Nen (“Winding Nen”) and this was changed to Serpentine by way of analogy. Quirinal Nentirum (literally “Place on the Nen”) was changed to Fallcrest simply for descriptive reasons. The Nentir Falls (“Falls of the Nen”) were never actually given a new name although they are usually simply called “the Falls”, especially in Fallcrest. Note however that the Baro family of Fallcrest tended to use Nentirum as the official name of the city for centuries after the Renomination.