#also if anyone wants to know what baby oyxc's nickname was

[stiltonbasket]

I'm sure by now you've received more than enough "chinese cultures don't reuse names" notes re: XXC and SL reincarnations in TMAAF-verse, so I'm going to ask instead because I'm curious: if you WERE to give them totally different names and/or courtesy names, what do you think you would choose for them?

I wouldn't choose different names for either of them, since their names are already different!

Ouyang Xingchen shares no characters with Xiao Xingchen's name; it might look the same to western readers, but it’s pronounced differently. OYXC’s Xingchen is written as 兴谌 (eagerness and sincerity), instead of 星尘 (star+dust/wordly entanglements).

Zizhen picked it because baby Xingchen wanted to take part in everything his parents did. His birth name is Ouyang Ye (椰) with the ye for the coconut palm tree.

Re: Yao Lan, his lan means blue; Song Lan’s name (岚) means mist. His courtesy name is 字沉 (common courtesy prefix + heavy/profound), as opposed to Song Zichen’s 子琛.