#i imagine a pretty similar situation with the nibblers and the mathematicians/concepts they’re named for

[oneunexpected]

I have a similar theory about the bats — obviously, they couldn’t have known about Greek and Roman mythology before the humans arrived, but because a lot of Flier is impossible for humans to hear or replicate, I think they have different names only Fliers can use (or at the very least they used to have a completely different naming system).

I wonder, assuming they still have names they only use in their language, if their Greek and Roman names are rough translations. Like, maybe Aurora’s name in Flier could literally translate to Dawn. Thalia means “joyous one.” Euripides meant “one who moves quickly.” These seem like pretty good things to name your babies.

All of their names in Flier could be epithets like this. I can imagine the early humans being like, “I’m gonna need something better to call you than Beloved” and a flier who’d recently learned about Greek myths being like “oh call me Hera then.” As time passed and their bond with humans became as inextricable as it is by the time of the series, the Fliers started naming their children the other way around — maybe a mother wants to call her pup Zeus among humans, so the pup’s name in Flier is Sky Father when directly translated.

That would make more sense for a bat like Ares, whose name means “curse,” “ruin” or (ironically) “bane,” which don’t seem like things you’d usually want to name your kid. But you would want your kid to have a name that suggested strength and prowess among the humans, maybe even at the cost of calling him Bane in your own tongue.

Or maybe the fliers did come up with sounds that represent the gods and figures they’re now named after, or their names in Flier are completely unrelated to their names in English and all of this is wrong! I just prefer the thought of, like, all the bats calling Queen Athena “Queen Bright Eyes” in their own language. Otherwise they completely abandoned their old names and that’s a pretty sad thought.

A theory I thought of

The names of the gnawers are not their actual names. Ripred isn't actually called Ripred. Lapblood isn't actually called Lapblood. Those are just the closest human translations of their actual names in the gnawer language, names that could have related, but still entirely different meanings.