"Huh. So when I was contrasting my mom and my dad you didn't necessarily notice which one was the one who's still alive."

"They were different diminutives. I don't call my parents the exact same thing, I could track which one was which."

"Huh. Not even a word for, I dunno, incubating parent, other biological parent...?"

"Technical terms, sure but you don't call them that."

"How do marriages with a bunch of people in them divide up all the words?"

"There's lots of diminutives for parent, and sometimes you can add stuff--I have a friend who calls her parents red-pari, yellow-pari, and renna."

"Why the colors, do those mean things?"

"As I understand it, they were originally an infantile reference to the relevant parents' favorite colors. To be fair, I've met her parents, they really do wear a lot of red and yellow respectively."

"Huh. Okay. But what I meant was how do they all agree on who's pari and who's renna and so on."

"...There isn't, like, a cultural script for it or anything. They just--decide."

"Huh."

"How do your parents decide what to be called? I'm assuming there's more than one possible diminutive--per gender, apparently."

"Depends on the language, really, but yeah, there's generally enough options for same-sex couples to work something out."

"Well, there you go, then."

"But there's usually only two of them even so."

"There's lots to pick from. I imagine most people just find something they like and work it out if there's a collision."

"Makes sense."

"So if you only ever have two parents, is that why your last name only had two syllables? Not that no one has two-syllable last names where I'm from..."

"...Dragons don't do last names, we do line names. My line name is my father's entire personal name. Dragon names are always two syllables like that."

"...Oh. What's the difference between a line name and a last name?"

"Last names belong to whole families; line names have to do with gender and color. If I had a sister, she'd have my mother's line name instead. Or my mother's first name, if she was a silver like my dad instead of a gold like me and Mother."

"How do last names belong to families? I guess if you only have two genders a kid is always going to be the same gender as one of their parents, at least, you could just give them their same-gendered parent's wholesale..."

"...Okay, last names among humans in the country I live in belong to whole families. How do yours work?"

"Usually a kid's last name is a combination of elements from their parents. My name is Pletha Wistraika; my parents are Forrin Herraika and Marret Wistmaele."

"I live in a place called Corenta, and there, when two people get married they pick an ancestor's name, first or last, if they're lucky they can find one on both sides of the family, and then that's their last name and their kids' last names. M'cousin lives in Esmaar, and there households all have a last name; when people get married they move into one or the other's house and use that house's name. Or they start a new house and pick either one of the two."