At least y'all aren't saying "Lycans". I hate that word.
I think the real problem is that there really isn't a good term for werewolves other than "werewolves".
I never minded Lycan, though I did dislike Garou. And definitely Loup-Garou. Lupine (or Lupe or anything similar) kind of works, but more as an insulting term used to refer to them by an outside group than something they'd necessarily call themselves.
Though on that note...
yes, that's why "Lycan" is so stupid. It's like calling cancer victims "Cans" or amputees "Ampees".
To be fair, there were people who used the term "cripple" or "crip" or similar to refer to people who were crippled, so it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility for words to evolve that way.
The way I always interpreted that was that the
vampires were the one who called them Lycans (because, you know, the whole slave thing). So it was kind of
supposed to be a bit insulting. The werewolves didn't really have a culture or identity of their own to have their own term.
And the name WOULD have been given around the same point in time that people were calling people with leprosy Lepers, so it kind of fits. People in the Middle Ages weren't necessarily the most sensitive about phraseology. Hell, most people prior to the late 20th century weren't all that sensitive about phraseology.
Then when they broke free, they basically just kept using the term because a) they didn't really have an alternative for themselves, and b) because there was a bit of the "I'm taking it back/reclaiming it/redefining it" sort of mentality. Like, "You meant it as an insult, we will make it something to be proud of."
It's not perfect logic, but it's better than winding up with a way more awkward or stupid name (and they easily could have).
Also, Lycanthropy was always a bit pseudoscience-y in the first place, because it just comes from Lycaon in Greek myth, who murdered his son, cooked him, and tried to feed him to Zeus - and was turned into a wolf as punishment. So it was always a kind of magical/supernatural in the first place.
It's like "spelling magic with a 'k' means it REAL!".
Better be careful. Keep that sort of thing up and the ghost of Aleister Crowley is going to start haunting you.
