A person's true name is a group of words in the Ancient Language that summarise that person's existence. Knowing something's true name gives you power over it.
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| - A person's true name is a group of words in the Ancient Language that summarise that person's existence. Knowing something's true name gives you power over it.
- A creature's true name is its hidden name that, rather just acting as a label, metaphysically truly belongs to that creature. All beings have true names, though most of these are unknown, especially to mere mortals. Knowing a creature's true name can grant power over it. There are several different accounts of true names and how they function in this sense.
- True names or secret names were the actual names of animals or things and the hidden names of people. Those of people were given to the individual by his or her parents when a child and known to them and to a few select people such as the tribe's shaman and perhaps a favorite lover. True names of animals were not known so shamans gathered to exchange names that they knew in the hopes of including the true name in their magical incantations.
- For demons, the true name allowed a magician to summon them. Any magician possessed of the proper knowledge and ability could summon a demon if they had its true name, provided that the demon in question was not currently in the service of another magician and was still extant. As such, magicians and demons both often zealously guarded knowledge of such names, in order to prevent being summoned, or to prevent summoning by another magician. In some societies, the practice of bynames was used, in which a demon was known by a different name than its true name. Such names were often re-used, for example, Rekhyt, a byname of Bartimaeus, was also used by at least two other demons of note. True names of demons were often recorded in books for use by future magicians.
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| - A person's true name is a group of words in the Ancient Language that summarise that person's existence. Knowing something's true name gives you power over it.
- For demons, the true name allowed a magician to summon them. Any magician possessed of the proper knowledge and ability could summon a demon if they had its true name, provided that the demon in question was not currently in the service of another magician and was still extant. As such, magicians and demons both often zealously guarded knowledge of such names, in order to prevent being summoned, or to prevent summoning by another magician. In some societies, the practice of bynames was used, in which a demon was known by a different name than its true name. Such names were often re-used, for example, Rekhyt, a byname of Bartimaeus, was also used by at least two other demons of note. True names of demons were often recorded in books for use by future magicians. For magicians, a true name could be a source of great danger. Many magicians, for their own safety, did not even know their true names. Those that did generally consigned them to oblivion upon coming of age, choosing to hide behind an assumed name by which they were known to the world. Knowledge even of this assumed name was useful to demons, but gaining knowledge of the magician's true name was considered a source of great power. It provided the demon with a key defense by allowing the demon to turn any cast by the magician against them, simply by stating the magician's true name, though it was still possible for the magician to dodge. In theory. this provided the demon with supreme power, but there were limitations that could be exploited by a clever magician. The demon was still technically under the power of the magician's summons and compelled to obey their orders. Additionally, knowledge of the true name still did not allow the demon to avoid certain tricks such as the spell of indefinite confinement, which was essentially a dismissal, but trapped the demon in a prison on Earth. This loophole was used the boy Nathaniel, later known as the magician John Mandrake, when his true name was learned by Bartimaeus.
- True names or secret names were the actual names of animals or things and the hidden names of people. Those of people were given to the individual by his or her parents when a child and known to them and to a few select people such as the tribe's shaman and perhaps a favorite lover. True names of animals were not known so shamans gathered to exchange names that they knew in the hopes of including the true name in their magical incantations. Madyu once averted a war between his tribe and that of a neighboring tribe by learning that tribe's chief's secret name and threatening to do dreadful things to the man's ghost in the spirit world unless he called off his warriors.
- A creature's true name is its hidden name that, rather just acting as a label, metaphysically truly belongs to that creature. All beings have true names, though most of these are unknown, especially to mere mortals. Knowing a creature's true name can grant power over it. There are several different accounts of true names and how they function in this sense.
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