Original Names

[Lord_Caerolion]

I have been trying to find all 18 of the 20 we have information about and I'm having problems locating this information. What were the names of the Legions before they were united with their Primarchs?

 

The only two that I know off the top of my head were the Dusk Raiders/Death Guard and War Hounds/World Eaters. Does anyone know the remaining 16?

 

We've only been told the Pre-Primarch names of a small fraction, which is pretty much summed up here. Dusk Raiders, War Hounds and Imperial Heralds. Nothing else has been mentioned.

[Piousservant]

I assume that they didn't all have different names before the Primarchs, it depended a lot on the character of the individual Primarchs.

 

For instance, I believe in "A Thousand Sons" it says that they always had that Legion name, as if the Emperor knew what was going to happen to them?

[Captain Idaho]

Agreed. Likewise, the Ultramarines were quoted as having their forward base moved to Maccragge when Guilliman was reunited with the Emperor, thus a strong implication they were Ultramarines prior to his emergence.

 

From what the Tales of Heresy short novel implies, the Iron Warriors were called Iron Warriors before meeting their Primarch, though I can't quite remember.

[Vodunius]

eg: the White Scars may have originally been the Storm Lords.

 

Considering that the Storm Lords have already been a loyalist titan legion, a traitor titan legion and a superheavy tank.. I wouldn't be surprised :tu: (tho personally I prefer the idea of the Storm Lords chapter being formed my a loyalist regiment of Death Guard absorbed by the White Scars sometime during the Heresy whilst if that were true it would be better if it was formed from a White Scar unit still heavy with surviving Terrans)

[Lord_Caerolion]

Agreed. Likewise, the Ultramarines were quoted as having their forward base moved to Maccragge when Guilliman was reunited with the Emperor, thus a strong implication they were Ultramarines prior to his emergence.

 

From what the Tales of Heresy short novel implies, the Iron Warriors were called Iron Warriors before meeting their Primarch, though I can't quite remember.

 

That doesn't imply in any way that the Ultramarines were named that before they found Guilliman. The Death Guard homeworld became Barbarus after they found Mortarion too, it doesn't mean they were always named the Death Guard, simply that at least one change was made, without ruling out the possibility of a second.

 

Personally, I think it'd be a little stupid if the Ultramarines were named that beforehand, only to have their Primarch discovered in the realm of Ultramar.

[Captain Idaho]

Of course it implies such. Until information is released otherwise, the fact it talks about the Ultramarines as an entity created before reunification between Guilliman and Legion, and names the Legion "Ultramarines" in that context, is implication of the Legion's name.

 

And do you not think Ultramar was named for the Ultramarines? Both options are feasible.

[Brother Tyler]

I don't think that any such implication is made, and it's quite fair to say that it would be an unreasonable coincidence to think that the Legion was called the Ultramarines and its Primarch just happened to be found in the realm of Ultramar. That smacks of a 3rd grader's grasp of probability and creativity on the part of the authors.

 

It's possible that the realm of Ultramar may have been renamed, but the implication that it was already named such is much stronger than the implication you support. Statements to the effect that Guilliman's capsule landed on Ultramar have been around for a very long time. Now if there was a statement that the Guilliman's realm was renamed "Ultramar" in honour of the legion with which he had been reunited, there might be a tenable argument.

 

The more likely explanation is that GW/BL just haven't put the effort into assigning each Legion a pre-Primarch name, or that they have referred to the Legions by their later names out of simplicity.

[Captain Idaho]

So I'm giving them too much credit then ^_^

 

Well whilst I believe that likely GW haven't put much thought into the subject, especially when many of the sources on the matter are from older editions when serious historical book keeping was not a neccessity, I do believe the BL novels will sooner or later in the Heresy series confirm that either Ultramar or the Ultramarines are named after the other. It's a tidying up we can expect seeing as the rest of the series has been doing similar things lately and it is a loose end which requires a little bit of trimming.

 

But then I'm being an optimist today.

 

As for whether the implication is one way or the other, the implication towards Ultramar being an area pre-Guilliman is very odd seeing as the worlds there weren't united (though had contact) before his arrival. Of course the implication is strong, but that doesn't change what I have said though. There is still strong implication of my suggestion that the Ultramarines were named such before re-unification, as we don't know either way, but this way it makes more sense bearing in mind the worlds of Ultramar were unified post Guilliman.

[BlkTom]

Problem is this... the authors can do whatever he hell they want. They have creative license to create fiction in a fictional setting with barily a skeleton of 'cannon' to go off of. And, lets face facts... GW doesn't give a ounce of :cusse as long as they get some money from the sales of these books or they push sales of minies. That's a fact, Jack.

 

Remember when the Dark Angels use to be black? Remember when GW got into it's big 'mongolian' kick and butchered the Rough Rider minies and the White Scars? Remember books like 'Deathwing' that were so terrible it made children stroke out? Remember how GW would tell you you needed 10 figs in this unit but sell them in packs of 3? Yeah... GW doesn't care...because the core of the game and the idea behind it is so good you can throw mud on it and hose it down a few years later with different authors and different books and just say the old stuff was 'warped through the passage of time' unless some guy came up on such a brilliant idea they run with it (and those are few and far inbetween).

 

They suckered me back with 5th Ed... and if those sons of bastages make 6th Ed next year, I will sink England.

[Wolf Priest Haelaeif]

Problem is this... the authors can do whatever he hell they want. They have creative license to create fiction in a fictional setting with barily a skeleton of 'cannon' to go off of. And, lets face facts... GW doesn't give a ounce of :cusse as long as they get some money from the sales of these books or they push sales of minies. That's a fact, Jack.

 

Remember when the Dark Angels use to be black? Remember when GW got into it's big 'mongolian' kick and butchered the Rough Rider minies and the White Scars? Remember books like 'Deathwing' that were so terrible it made children stroke out? Remember how GW would tell you you needed 10 figs in this unit but sell them in packs of 3? Yeah... GW doesn't care...because the core of the game and the idea behind it is so good you can throw mud on it and hose it down a few years later with different authors and different books and just say the old stuff was 'warped through the passage of time' unless some guy came up on such a brilliant idea they run with it (and those are few and far inbetween).

 

They suckered me back with 5th Ed... and if those sons of bastages make 6th Ed next year, I will sink England.

 

What a beautiful rant. :)

 

I do not agree with it, though. I think it is perfectly fine for GW to not have thought of everything when they started making this game. And when they expanded on things that were only one or two sentences in rogue trader or 2nd edition, I think it is understandable that they sometimes have to contradict earlier fluff in order for the new fluff to make sense.

 

That Ultramar and the Ultramarines should be one named after the other, for example, is something I just always assumed. That'd be far too much coincidence.

 

I think that most of the legion names are somehow telling names, thus should GW expand on talking about how and why they were named, they may have to come up with explanations. And it does not end with the question of whether they had their seemingly primarch-related names before that primarch was found (Iron Hands, imo, just cannot have had that name and then found out that, whoops, their primarch is named Ferrus Manus - which is latin for 'iron hand'. The same goes for the Raven Guard and Corax). But it goes on with how to explain that of all legions, it must have been the Death Guard that became worshippers of Nurgle (together with their Primarch Mortarion - which again begs an exlanation, if that was the Legion's name before finding him). World Eaters and Khorne is more believable, but only just. So I guess there will be some more room for retconning, if GW sees fit, and I find that entirely fine, as long as it is well-written - which I think is not always the case, but that is another topic entirely.

[Paradill]

Somewhere, and I can't for the life of me recall where, I read of the Ultramarines being named after the deep blue of macragge's oceans. It's either a piece of fan fiction that I loved the sound of or an obscure canonical article. Either way, the subject of former legion names will undoubtably be expanded upon as the horus heresy novels continue.

 

Paradill

 

Come to think of it the dornian heresy could well be the source of the above citation.

[Wolf Priest Haelaeif]

I wouldn't be so sure that the HH novels will tell us much of the legion names before finding the primarchs. While I have only read a few, they all take place later, so those names don't need to be mentioned.

[awfulawful]

The Ultramarines went through several name changes, but they were originally known as the Brooklyn Dodgers.

 

/citation needed

[Paradill]

I wouldn't be so sure that the HH novels will tell us much of the legion names before finding the primarchs. While I have only read a few, they all take place later, so those names don't need to be mentioned.

 

 

I meant more along the lines of referencing past events from the point of the novels. Just because something doesn't need to be mentioned doesn't mean they wont be mentioned.

 

Paradill

[VulkansFury]

Ok working on a hypothesis. Ultramarines could origionally been known as the Warrior-Kings. In the first Chapter of "The First Heretic" The Word Bearers are face to face witha company of Ultras and they refer to them as the Warrior-Kings of Ultramar. As this scene was set 47 years before Istvaan they may still be calling them a combination of the old and new name. Its just a theory....probably wrong

[augustmanifesto]

Hey, what's this "legions had a history during the unification era" business? are there sources on this? If true, I would really like to read about it. Sounds baller.

 

The only reference I know of whicheven somewhat implies that is the first battle-honor earned by the Imperial Fists, "Roma." According to the Index Astartes entry, the honor "evidences" their Terran origins, perhaps indicating that "Roma" was referencing "Rome" as the location of the battle in which the honor was earned. Is there anything more than this?

[Jareddm]

Hey, what's this "legions had a history during the unification era" business? are there sources on this? If true, I would really like to read about it. Sounds baller.

 

The only reference I know of whicheven somewhat implies that is the first battle-honor earned by the Imperial Fists, "Roma." According to the Index Astartes entry, the honor "evidences" their Terran origins, perhaps indicating that "Roma" was referencing "Rome" as the location of the battle in which the honor was earned. Is there anything more than this?

 

In The Last Church, the Emperor is accompanied by space marines wearing Thunder Armor.

[augustmanifesto]

Do we know they're space marines? I thought those were thunder warriors, proto-space marines. IIRC, Space Marines never used thunder armor.

[The Emperor's Champion]

Actually, over in the Ultramarines sub-forum, we've sort of come to the conclusion that the original name for the Ultramarines Legion was "The Thirteenth".

 

 

 

As to how I figure they became Ultramarines:

 

"ultra mar" means "beyond the sea"

To me it seems that Guilliman's jewel, the empire of Ultramar, was probably named first (fluffwise, not IRL) and an "Ultramar-ine" (like Florence → Florentine, Philistia → Philistine, Argentina → Argentine) was simply the demonym for the people of his empire. When the Emperor shows up on his doorstep and gives him a bucketload of Space Marines to command he bestows the demonym upon the warriors who now call his whole empire home (and really, they'd be the only ones who'd really call the entire empire home). A case of convergent evolution in names*. I imagine the name "Ultramar" will be something Guilliman saw in relation to what he had created. Since he started on Macragge and had to reach out to each of the other systems in ships, perhaps he thought of his empire as being forged from places "beyond the sea (of stars)"

 

 

*Sort of. The "mar" in "Ultramar" means "sea" and is actually the root that the word "Marine" (a seafaring or amphibious soldier) comes from in the first place. The fact that Ultramar happened to end up getting an "ine" tacked on to the end of it when it became a demonym would be the convergent evolution-ish part.

And indeed, Guilliman's own armour is described as being the stormy blue of Macragge's waters. "Ultramar" does seem to have been named with the concept of "beyond the sea" in mind, rather than in honour of a Space Marine Legion.

 

Moreover,

"Outremer, French (outre-mer) for "overseas", was the general name given to the Crusader states established after the First Crusade: the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and especially the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The name was often used as an equivalent to Levant or Palestine, and incorporated areas that are today large parts of Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon and a small part of Turkey."

The Spanish version:

"Outremer, en francés "ultramar", fue el nombre genérico dado a los Estados cruzados establecidos después de la Primera Cruzada: el Condado de Edesa, el Principado de Antioquía, el Condado de Trípoli y, sobre todo, el Reino de Jerusalén. El nombre se usaba como equivalente a Tierra Santa, Levante, Siria o Palestina, e incluía territorios que en la actualidad forman parte de Israel, los Territorios Palestinos, Jordania y Líbano."

 

Seeing as how Outremer=Ultramar, I think we can pretty safely say "the medieval Crusader states founded by knightly orders" is a good candidate for a source of Ultramar's name.

 

 

 

We've got loads of this type of stuff in regards to the Ultramarines. Everyone kinda thinks Ultramarines is just a simple silly name to go with a fairly simple concept of blue Roman Space Marines, but we keep finding all these crazy things that make us unsure of if GW's writers are just epically brilliant or if they just constantly stumble backwards into accidental Fridge Brilliance.

[Cyrox]

Hmmm... I think the Ultramarines have always had that name.

 

According the the fluff, Ultramar was named after the Ultramarines

[Walter Payton]

According the the fluff, Ultramar was named after the Ultramarines

 

Where does it say that?

[Cyrox]

I'll find it tonight and post the page number, can't remember which book its in

[Gaius Atticus]

I read of the Ultramarines being named after the deep blue of macragge's oceans.

This definitely exists somewhere, as I too have read the same.

[Arkangilos]

I think the Blood Angels were renamed to that because of the tribe Sanguinius was raised by.

[Inquisitor Engel]

I read of the Ultramarines being named after the deep blue of macragge's oceans.

This definitely exists somewhere, as I too have read the same.

 

Thirded, though I cannot recall where.