Single Comment

David - Thank you very much for the additional naming convention information.  

Before I add a few comments I'd like to mention that on June 19, 2003, George Hodges wrote a message that relates, in part, directly to piece naming.  He was writing about pieces in the very large Tai Kyoku Shogi game.  That game includes many pieces that we find in our modern CVs.  And it seems that we our not copying these pieces on purpose, but are re-inventing them.  That we are discovering them on our own, unaware in many cases, that they already exist.  But even then, we find as Hodges wrote:
[Begin quote - George Hodges 6/19/2003]
'' Very many of the names of the pieces are now known to be quite wrong; likewise many of the moves of the pieces are also believed to be totally wrong. Consider, for example, that no fewer than 57 pieces, well known from other connected variants, are given with a quite different move! Three ancient sources are now known (as at November 2002), with numerous differences in names and moves; no two of them agree! '' [End Quote]

I found that the HUNTER, which moves forward like a Rook or backwards as a Bishop, is the same piece as the MULTI-GENERAL (Suisho) in Tenjiku Shogi.

My RETNUH, which moves forward like a Rook, but backward as a Knight, came to me while thinking about the HUNTER - I simply substituted the Bishop element with a Knight element - and so I spelled HUNTER in reverse to keep a name relation.  But, as you correctly point out, my RETNUH equals the Adrian King 1999 FIREHORSE from his Typhoon game.  

You also wrote, ''Jeff 'Cavebear' Stroud calls the Falcon a Y-Rider in his 2001 chess variant ABC Chess.'' and ''Army #2 has the [Rook+Alfil+Ferz] compound. This interesting piece cannot be found anywhere else. Eric Greenwood's variant Archabbott Chess has the[B+D+W] piece.''   

I would not be surprised to see these pieces surface in a large and ancient Shogi variant.  For example: Tai Kyoku Shogi uses a 36 X 36 board and has 11 ranks dedicated to each player's starting position. There are 402 pieces for each player (804 pieces!); and 300 different piece moves. 

You also mention,

''I like Jeff Stroud's piece name 'Y-Rider', used in Army #8. The name 'Falcon' is used in Gary K. Gifford's new variant Gryphon Aanca Chess.''

I used FALCON because that was the name Jean Louis Cazaux had used.  Since then I've also seen the FALCON referred to as a HAWKER.  As to the name Y-Rider. Yes, is fitting to the FALCON in Gryphon Aanca.  Because the FALCON gives as a true Y movement.  But there are other Y-movers (riders) and 'Rider' today, often implies repeat moves... like a Knight-Rider.