This just happened at work

[Sawyer7as]

I typically browse the forums while I work in my call center. This customer called just called in.

[*Aqua*]

Did you ask him how his brother Jebediah is doing?

[RainDreamer]

So I just searched for the origin of the name, and apparently Kerman is an actual honest fo' real English surname:

https://www.houseofnames.com/kerman-family-crest

http://names.mooseroots.com/l/59331/Kerman

That is interesting. I didn't know the kerbals were British.

[SebLavK]

They can't be, there's no tea on board the ships, only snacks!

[Robotengineer]

I typically browse the forums while I work in my call center. This customer called just called in.

http://i.imgur.com/nlOtO3e.png

Aren't you breaking some sort of confidentiality agreement?

[wossname]

Doubtful, we don't know what call centre Sawyer7as works at, so no personal data can be inferred.

A name on its own isn't protected information as you can simply open a phone book and find more useful info.

My lawyer reminds me that I am not a lawyer.

[Starwhip]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/members/59475-daniel-l

You may have found this fellow.

[heng]

Hmmm... Most common first name in germany is Yuriy (phonebook entries): http://www.verwandt.de/karten/absolut/kerman.html

Edited June 26, 2015 by heng

[Tandoori]

The Netflix show Orange is the New Black is based on an autobiography by Piper Kerman. Her name is in the credits of every episode as an executive producer, and it makes me smile every time.

[Fenris]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/members/59475-daniel-l

You may have found this fellow.

Awww ... you done screwed up now. Daniel L is "The Destroyer of Worlds"

So I just searched for the origin of the name, and apparently Kerman is an actual honest fo' real English surname:

https://www.houseofnames.com/kerman-family-crest

http://names.mooseroots.com/l/59331/Kerman

That is interesting. I didn't know the kerbals were British.

Also, now I want that Coat of Arms for a flag.

[Foxster]

You know all those coats of arms are made up ........, right?

[Kerbart]

It gets even weirder -- there's a Jebediah running for President!

[Fenris]

You know all those coats of arms are made up ........, right?

Everything is just made up at some point.

[Sawyer7as]

Aren't you breaking some sort of confidentiality agreement?

I thought about that briefly before continuing. But honestly, I don't think so. Name's I don't think are considered protected information to anyone.

[Torih]

They can't be, there's no tea on board the ships, only snacks!

You're not looking hard enough, of course we have tea included with snacks.

[Galane]

Coats of Arms, or Blazons, are not family insignia. They're assigned to an individual. A husband and wife would often have elements of both of their blazons combined, and each of their children would have one with a small change.

This originated back when nobles fought battles as a bunch of individuals, each with retainers, men at arms etc to support and fight alongside them. Each adopted a unique pattern to paint on his shield so allies and enemies could tell at a distance who they wanted to go hit with sharp and pointy things, and who they weren't supposed to go and smack - at least not in the current fight.

What started a major change in the organization of armies was the battle of Agincourt. The French were still "organized" along the old gaggle of nobles system. The English hit upon the revolutionary concept of organizing their entire force as a unit to fight together. The terrain, weather and other factors helped the English, but the main factor in their victory was the organization that enabled them to fire massive, synchronized volleys of arrows to plunge down upon the French, slaughtering their horses and anyone in the fight without good armor. While the French knights struggled with the gooey mud clinging to their armor, they got to watch as thousands died around them. The English side lost barely over 100 men, the French up to 10,000. The English brought a lot of arrows.

As for those sites selling fancy printouts of "family" coats of arms, there's two software packages out there which most of them use. One makes somewhat nicer looking designs. What they've done is traced back variations of a large number of surnames, some of which have had their spelling altered many times as people moved around the world, and if some ancestor way back had a genuine blazon, the software authors have applied that to all variations of that surname.

There is an actual College of Heraldry and College of Arms to which one can apply for your own design. Some possible distant ancestor of mine had a very simple blazon, two Sable chevrons on an Argent field. Were I to see about getting my own blazon, I'd take that and add three Sable Mullets (stars), Fess wise across the top.

Hmmm, I should do that on my Heraldic KSP flag which has the shield with two chevrons, beside a Cockatrice.