"A family name... a family name, huh..."
Having been confirmed as the head of a new noble house, Rest walked along the corridor, muttering to himself.
He needed to settle on the family name he'd be taking before the ennoblement ceremony... but what would be a good name?
(If I use my name from when I was Japanese, it'd be Honda... no. Absolutely out of the question.)
Rest Honda.
Obviously not. Beyond not.
(Then how about a protagonist's name from a novel I liked? Something like Siegfried or Pendragon?)
However... when he looked them up in the peerage register he'd brought from the library, both names already belonged to existing noble families. He couldn't use the same family name.
(Even these ridiculous chuunibyou names are taken... could there have been other reincarnated people besides me?)
"Oh, Rest. What's wrong? You've got a troubled look on your face."
"Viola."
As he walked along the corridor lost in thought, he ran into Viola, fresh from her bath. Primula and Yuri were behind her.
All three wore just cardigans thrown over their negligees.
There was nothing wrong with wearing what they wanted inside the house... but for a young man of his age, it was a bit hard on the eyes.
(Viola and Primula are fine, I'm used to seeing them like that. They're my fiancées, after all. But... Yuri's is a bit much, I think...)
"This one didn't seem to have any sleepwear, so I lent her some of mine."
Viola explained.
Yuri, too, had a healthy flush from her bath and beamed at him with a wide smile.
"Right. At the Cattleya marquis household, my brothers all used to walk the corridors naked after their baths. I was the only one who wasn't allowed to, for some reason... but ever since I left home, I've been spending my time in my room in the nude. I can't very well go around like that in someone else's house, though, so she lent me some sleepwear."
Even though no one had asked, Yuri explained the whole thing anyway.
It seemed the Cattleya marquis family were naturists. Utterly useless information, but there it was.
"How is it? Does it suit me?"
"Ah… I suppose it does?"
Yuri struck a pose with her hand on her hip, proudly showing off her nightgown getup.
Rest did his best not to look directly at her… and offered a safe, diplomatic compliment.
"More importantly… what happened to you, Lord Rest? You looked troubled about something…"
"Ah… I just had some things to think about."
Answering Primula's question, Rest led the three of them down the corridor.
Standing around chatting in the hallway after a bath would only let them catch a chill.
He brought them to the sitting room, settled them on the sofa, and explained the situation.
"Hmm, a family name, you say? Wouldn't 'Rosemary' work?"
"It would become a separate house from House Rosemary, so apparently a different name would be better. Things would get too confusing otherwise."
"What a pain. Even after being granted a title, you're still part of House Rosemary, so why not just keep the same name?"
"Well… among the upper nobility, there are quite a few who hold multiple titles and family names. Father holds several titles himself, doesn't he?"
Primula added this to counter her sister, who was pouting her lips in displeasure.
Yuri, who had been listening from the side, let out a thoughtful "Hmm" and held up her index finger.
"Then how about something like 'Giant'? Sounds strong, doesn't it?"
"It does sound strong, but… honestly, it doesn't feel like it suits me."
"Is that so… Then maybe the name of a strong animal — something like Lion, or Tiger, or Buffalo? Hawk and Eagle have a nice ring to them too, don't they?"
"Aren't you saying that on purpose?"
"What are you talking about?"
Rest furrowed his brow with a strange sense of unease... but Yuri just had a puzzled expression.
From the unusually consistent naming, he couldn't help but suspect that Yuri might be a reincarnated person too.
"Come to think of it... a lot of the nobles in this country have flower names. Is there some reason for that?"
Rosemary. Cattleya. Crocus. All of them were flower names.
He recalled that among his classmates at the academy, there had been several who bore flower names.
"Well... it seems that the first king who founded the Kingdom of Aiwood had a queen who enjoyed growing flowers. She apparently gave flower names to her favored retainers, and that tradition has continued to the present day."
"I see... that makes sense."
Rest nodded at Primula's explanation.
"So the nobles with flower names were favorites of the first queen... hearing it put that way, I actually feel a strange sense of kinship."
"Not all of them, mind you. Some nobles adopted flower house names later, inspired by that tradition. If you're having trouble deciding on a house name, you could do the same."
"A flower name, huh..."
Unfortunately, Rest wasn't all that knowledgeable about flowers.
The only ones that came to mind off the top of his head were Japanese flowers like cherry blossoms, plum blossoms, and chrysanthemums.
"Primula, do you have any names that come to mind?"
"Let me see... How about Tulip, Hyacinth, or Peach? None of them should have been used as house names before, though..."
"Hmm..."
Rest Tulip Rest Hyacinth Rest Peach All of them were underwhelming names. He lacked the confidence to even turn around when called from behind.
He flipped through the peerage encyclopedia, but... most of the famous flower names he knew had already been taken.
(If I'm going to do this, I might as well pick an auspicious name... It's not every day you get to choose your own surname. An auspicious name. Something festive, a flower of good fortune...)
"That's it... What about 'Clover'?"
Rest blurted out the name that had just popped into his head.
Rest Clover. It had a nice ring to it, he thought.
It evoked images of a four-leaf clover, and it was a name brimming with good luck.
"Clover... That's nice. There shouldn't be any nobles with that name."
"How wonderful. I think it suits you, Rest."
Primula and Viola both agreed.
"Viola Clover... Yeah, not bad at all."
"Primula Clover... Yes, I like it."
"Wait... You two don't actually need to take the name, do you?"
Rest was slated to be ennobled as a new noble, but marrying into House Rosemary wouldn't change anything.
There was no reason for the two daughters of the family he was marrying into to adopt the "Clover" name.
"Yuri Clover. Hmm, yes, the name flows nicely. I've taken a liking to it too."
"W-Wait!?"
Yuri dropped that bombshell out of nowhere, and Viola and Primula both shot up from the sofa in unison.