Totem Animals

My totem animal has always been, naturally, the brown bear.

Not that I’ve had any sort of affinity with it, but I’m going by my last name, what with the ors- root meaning bear and the only bear in Italy (let alone Europe) is the brown bear. Since it is my totem, it is also my kids’ totem, but let’s have some fun with this and give them a secondary one based on their names!

Instead of getting an animal that is derived from the meaning of their names (which isn’t going to work since one name is made up, one name describes a type of person, and one is about a town in a swamp), let’s go by similar sounding animals. Eldest is easiest, since I sometimes pretend that is what his name is derived from (it is not) and the others seem just natural to me.

Kestian’s totem is the kestrel.

This seemed natural based on similar beginning (what else starts with kest- in English?), and is pretty awesome to have a falcon (along with a bear!) as your totem animal. Granted, kestrels are small and often eat bugs, but they are nicely colored (with some blue, at least in the American one) with a cool ‘death mask’ look. Also, when Kestian found out that there was a falcon called a kestrel he thought it was neat that it was so similar to his name.

Adelaide’s totem is the Adelie penguin.

Oh, she’d like this a lot I’m sure, especially since she just loved to see them in my animal book when she heard the name (odd how kids feel an attachment to things based on similar names). It also fits her well since it is cute and all but not too cutesy. While they do look cute and clumsy on land, penguins are sleek and graceful in the water, so they are both cute and bad ass.

Fenton’s totem is the fennec.

Oh yeah, that'll work.