Originally posted on Pemba, where this piece is called a Crocodile.
this is my variant. I name the pieces as I like. Plenty of other chessvariants have names for their pieces that I don't like. I beg you to respect my choice
Agreed. I respect the right of game creators to use the piece names they wish to.
I use the name of Crocodile for the Vao for several of my variants already published here and on my site. So, I wish to be consistent in the tree of my variants. See Zanzibar-S, Zanzibar-L, Maasai Chess, Teramachy, Gigachess II, Terachess II, etc.
While consistency makes sense, it is only consistency with yourself, and you retain the right to rename the piece in all your variants if you desire to.
Saying it has no sense is wrong and upsetting.
It would be wrong to say that you had no reason for the name, because of course you did. I can't speak for Theresa, but I was aware, more or less, of your reason for the name Crocodile. I just don't think it is a good one.
In Grant Acedrex (from 1283) there is a Crocodile, named Cocatrice to be precise in medieval Spanish but which is depicted as a crocodile in that codex. This piece plays as a modern Bishop. The diagonal move is the inspiration for the name of Crocodile in my variants. You can estimate that this reason is weak but it is not "no sense".
Okay, it is weak, and I will now back that up. First of all, I disagree with the principal that it is a good idea to intentionally name a piece after a different piece that moves similarly to it. To be clear, this is different than accidentally giving a piece the same name as another piece or intentionally giving a piece the same name as another piece despite that name already being in use. I consider a name already being used for another piece a prima facie reason against using the name. But as long as you have other good reasons for using a name, these reasons may override this reason against using the name and independently justify the use of the name. In this case, though, you have no independent reasons for using the name Crocodile. Your only reason is that the name was used for the Bishop, which moves in the same directions as the Vao. Since I would count this as a reason against using the name rather than as a reason for using it, I do not consider this a good reason for using the name.
Second, you are using a translation of the original name, and I do not trust your translation. Cocatrice (or cocatriz as I actually found it spelled in the text of the Grant Acedrex) is not the Spanish word for crocodile, which is actually cocodrilo. Both spellings, cocatrice and cocatriz, are suspiciously close to cockatrice, which is a mythical serpentine beast or dragon with two legs and the head of a rooster, and when I search for either term, that is what I get articles on. Although you claim that the Grant Acedrex depicts the cocatrice as a crocodile, I did not find any depiction of it in the images we have of it on this site. But if you have images we don't have, I would be happy to see them. Additionally, the Grant Acedrex has included the names of other mythical animals that you have translated into the names of real animals, such as AAnca and Vnicornio. I am suspicious of those translations as well. Naming pieces after mythical animals has not been uncommon. So, if a name in a historic text looks like the name of a mythical animal, that may well be what it is.
Finally, I did have very good reasons for selecting the name Arrow. My first idea for a name was the punny name of Canon, which is a kind of cleric whose name sounds like Cannon. But it's not really a good name for the piece in a game that already includes a Cannon, and I also decided to give it a Chinese name. For that, I chose the character 矢, whose meanings include both arrow and vow. The idea of an arrow fits with the idea of a cannon as a long-range projectile weapon that can go over the heads of others, and vow is a homonym for Vao, the name that the piece goes by in fairy chess.
Originally posted on Pemba, where this piece is called a Crocodile.
Agreed. I respect the right of game creators to use the piece names they wish to.
While consistency makes sense, it is only consistency with yourself, and you retain the right to rename the piece in all your variants if you desire to.
It would be wrong to say that you had no reason for the name, because of course you did. I can't speak for Theresa, but I was aware, more or less, of your reason for the name Crocodile. I just don't think it is a good one.
Okay, it is weak, and I will now back that up. First of all, I disagree with the principal that it is a good idea to intentionally name a piece after a different piece that moves similarly to it. To be clear, this is different than accidentally giving a piece the same name as another piece or intentionally giving a piece the same name as another piece despite that name already being in use. I consider a name already being used for another piece a prima facie reason against using the name. But as long as you have other good reasons for using a name, these reasons may override this reason against using the name and independently justify the use of the name. In this case, though, you have no independent reasons for using the name Crocodile. Your only reason is that the name was used for the Bishop, which moves in the same directions as the Vao. Since I would count this as a reason against using the name rather than as a reason for using it, I do not consider this a good reason for using the name.
Second, you are using a translation of the original name, and I do not trust your translation. Cocatrice (or cocatriz as I actually found it spelled in the text of the Grant Acedrex) is not the Spanish word for crocodile, which is actually cocodrilo. Both spellings, cocatrice and cocatriz, are suspiciously close to cockatrice, which is a mythical serpentine beast or dragon with two legs and the head of a rooster, and when I search for either term, that is what I get articles on. Although you claim that the Grant Acedrex depicts the cocatrice as a crocodile, I did not find any depiction of it in the images we have of it on this site. But if you have images we don't have, I would be happy to see them. Additionally, the Grant Acedrex has included the names of other mythical animals that you have translated into the names of real animals, such as AAnca and Vnicornio. I am suspicious of those translations as well. Naming pieces after mythical animals has not been uncommon. So, if a name in a historic text looks like the name of a mythical animal, that may well be what it is.
Finally, I did have very good reasons for selecting the name Arrow. My first idea for a name was the punny name of Canon, which is a kind of cleric whose name sounds like Cannon. But it's not really a good name for the piece in a game that already includes a Cannon, and I also decided to give it a Chinese name. For that, I chose the character 矢, whose meanings include both arrow and vow. The idea of an arrow fits with the idea of a cannon as a long-range projectile weapon that can go over the heads of others, and vow is a homonym for Vao, the name that the piece goes by in fairy chess.