Name Days are most easily described as a cross between birthdays and baptism. The Name Day often does occur on the day of a child's birth, especially if the child was a product of the Birth Spell. A birth spell child is never a surprise any more than a body birth child is. So a Name Day is planned for well beforehand, the child is presented to family at the least, at the most friends, neighbors, villagers, guild members, courtiers--one's social circle.

In some places births, deaths, and marriages are recorded with great ceremony. Guilds record master works. Most places have a strong sense of history, of community continuity. This can take different forms, such as the decennial celebrations, when on years that end with one zero (more of them in years that end with two) people will travel back to their birth place, or the place regarded as their ancestral home, to celebrate.

Subsequent Name Day celebrations vary much like birthday celebrations on Earth: some places there is an enormous meal prepared, others the Name Day celebrant gives out gifts, or gets them. Or can name what kind of entertainment will be held after a meal.

In Chwahirsland, especially under the Sonscarnas, women were not permitted Name Day celebrations unless they were mothers of two males who served in the army, and those celebrations were to be kept strictly within closed doors.

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