Rite of Naming

Origin

The custom may be loosely linked to the great empire’s custom of rune names, where a citizen could not be apprenticed, inherit, marry, or join the army until they earned a special rune to serve as a legal name.
  However, after the fall of the Azlaryn Empire, health care became almost nonexistent as the survivors had been so dependent upon the empire’s magic mastery to provide for them. It was decades before divine magics were rediscovered to heal illness or weakness, and still more before masters in such arts became widespread.
  The unfortunate reality of this meant that not only those wounded by outside forces were affected. Many offspring were born dead, and an alarming amount of those who did survive birth died before their first birthday. Their cries often led hordes of demons to families, and by daybreak there was nothing left of the whole family.
  To make this reality easier on the grieving families, children were not named until they were at least two; at which point they were seen as past the most vulnerable time of an infant’s health, and have learned how to be silent in the dark.
 

Modern Views

Though originally rooted in a reminder of high infant mortality, the custom has matured over the generations to represent a child receiving their name only after displaying the initial signs of their personalities; with three years being considered particularly holy, and thus most ideal, after the three primary gods.
 

Observance

During the first three years of life, children are not given proper names, addressed by the appropriate pronouns or descriptives by family, or simple ‘child’ by others. Some will cycle through various nicknames to see if anything in particular stands out as fitting. When the child turns three, they are named properly by their parents or guardians, and registered in the city’s records.