Elective Semantectomy

The Elective Semantectomy was a temporal engineering procedure by which a Houseworlder could remove their true name from history and replace it with an impersonal title or appellation of their choosing.

In the vast majority of cases, this was done to protect a bloodline from embarrassment due to association with a renegade member, (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil) as the full names of many Houseworlders included the name of their Great House. (PROSE: Lungbarrow, The Book of the War, Against Nature, AUDIO: Body Politic) For instance, the Hussar underwent the procedure to protect the reputation of House Urquineath.

Houseworlders of a certain generation, when finding themselves stationed amongst the lesser species, often underwent the procedure rather than adopt a local name, fearing conceptual contamination, though this may have just been a manifestations of Houseworld snobbery. (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil)

Renegade Time Lords whose names were in the form of impersonal titles included the Doctor, (TV: An Unearthly Child) the Monk, (TV: The Time Meddler) the Master, (TV: Terror of the Autons) the Rani, (TV: The Mark of the Rani) the Interfering Nun, (PROSE: Shada) the Grandfather, (PROSE: Interference, The Book of the War) the Imperator, the War King, (PROSE: The Book of the War) the Clocksmith, (AUDIO: The Eighth Piece) the Eleven, (AUDIO: The Eleven) the Corsair, (TV: The Doctor's Wife) the Heretic, (AUDIO: The Two Masters) and the Player. (AUDIO: The Plague of Dreams)

After the Woman and the patriarch of the House of Stillhaven dissented to Rassilon's plan for the Ultimate Sanction during the Last Great Time War, (PROSE: Lords and Masters) Rassilon had the Woman's name erased from time. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)

Professor H Lennistein wrote about the Elective Semantectomy in his 31441 book The Great Houses And Us. (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil)