At 23:03 6/10/96 -0700, Mike W. Loader wrote:

Pretty good. "Decents and inversions" is still in my to-read list; I've
been real busy lately. Fairly short though, eh?
  Liked the grabbing of Shun, who was also fairly well decribed.
  A question - You gave his last name as Kuonji. Who was the father, and
why didn't the son take his name? (Yes, I know that there's no reason that
a child should take his or her father's name instead of the mothers, but
it is tradition.) Was just curious.

A while ago I was lurking on r.a.a. and someone posted one of those "anime 
and Japanese real life" guides.  Here's an excerpt:

                                                     Gilles Poitras

                                                     gilles@well.com

                                                     cowpunk@sirius.com

------------------------------------

ADOPTION INTO WIFE'S FAMILY. "The husband of a daughter takes his wife's

surname and becomes the successor to his wife's father as head of the

household." (JIE p. 8) This seen in the first episode of the _Ranma_ TV

series where Soun Tendo is explaining to his daughters that one of them

will be engaged to Ranma so then the family tradition can continue, and in

the Lupin anime _The Fuma Conspiracy_ when Goemon is told as part of his

wedding ceremony that he is going to become a member of the Suminawa clan.

Of course, I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else so I'm not sure how 
accurate it is.

  One last question - While I realize that the name fits both your
interest and the previous fanfic name, why did you choose "Symmetric
Polynomials" for the title? :)