Elective Semantectomy

The Elective Semantectomy was a temporal engineering procedure by which a member of the Great Houses could remove their true name from history and replace it with an impersonal title of their choosing.

In most 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, Panacea) 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 Hussar, (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil) 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)

During the War in Heaven, some Homeworlders volunteered to undergo Semantectomy before being stationed among the lesser species, due to fears that adopting a local name might lead to conceptual contamination. (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil)

Before the Doctor left Gallifrey, he broke his name into thirty-eight pieces. During his travels, he spread them throughout the universe. (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad) In one of the versions of the Doctor's past, the Doctor's father erased both of their names from history. (PROSE: Unnatural History)

After the Woman and the Patriarch of Stillhaven dissented to Rassilon's plan for the Ultimate Sanction during the Last Great Time War, (TV: The End of Time, 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)