#shadow customs

Yes I can!

The only real rule that seems to exist in canon is that female Shadows have names that end in -era (Caiera, Maeera [from the newest stuff I haven't actually gotten to read yet. They're the only named female Shadows, so no telling if that's an actual rule of just a coincidence], and male Shadows often, but not always, have names starting with Hiro- (Hiroim, Hiro-Kala, Hiro-Amin) though there's also Koaam, which rounds out all of the named "traditional" Shadows. There's also Ol Sahm/(or Old Sam, as he's usually called), who is a Clear-Eyed Shadow, meaning he's from a group that chose to stay on Sakaar without giving up technology and basically was still of the same culture as Shadows were before coming to Sakaar. He seemed to be the only Clear-Eye left, as some sort of technological disaster occurred in their city, and the entire area is black and scorched. So I'm not going to go much into them because it's not likely you're making a Clear-Eye character (side note, they're called Clear-Eyed because they have white sclera) [also, I haven't put too much work into Clear-Eyes, but I can, if anyone is interested]

That's basically is for canon. There's like 6 names to work with, so your best bet would be a -era/Hiro- name. Also some names, all of which are Hiro- names, are compound names, but it's not every Hiro- name, and it's my opinion is that it's there so the readers have a better idea how to pronounce it, and probably isn't there in their actual names in their own language.

Now, if you want to get into *my* personal headcanons, which is what this blog is based on, I kind of threw that gender crap out the window and instead basically looked through lists of names for languages that my Saka was inspired by, found ones I liked that either already fit into Saka pronounciation or tweaked them to fit, and then found common chunks in the names and in my Saka and basically made roots lead to my list of names making some degree of sense. They didn't have to be actual roots, because essentially in my version, the original Sakaarian Shadows created Saka as basically a conlang to act as their new language as part of leaving their old lives, but they kept their names, so over time, names, which are based on Old Shadow instead of Modern Saka, diverged from their spoken language. This is a thing that actually happens (see all the "English" names that are fairly common, like Matthew, Elizabeth, ect, that were taken from the Bible and are quite different from the original Hebrew versions, and also most people, even people named Matthew or Elizabeth, could not tell you what those names mean off the top of their heads.)

If you want to check out my list of names, and my name roots, I'll include the links in the reblog, because Tumblr.

It is customary among the Shadow Tribes to empty the sand out of your tāba (adjustable cuffs often found in traditional pants, or more rarely, shirts) before entering a building, temple, shrine, or tent.