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@CMC Scootaloo
 
I don’t have the image off hand but I do remember someone screencapping one of the IDW writers who said him/herself that the comics are canon until the show does something to directly state a story is different. So because of that, that is the status I am assuming they actually are in. Canon until someone says they aren’t. So far little if anything has been directly called out as “wrong” by the show so that means by default it’s all canon. I’m not a comic denier.
 
@CMC Scootaloo  

 
 
Ueeeeuuhhhhh…..
 
What you gave is a possible lore explanation yes, and I would buy this among other explanations if they are given to us officially, but something about this suggestion rubs me the wrong way.
 
I never said it was IMPOSSIBLE to explain the thing I was talking about, I was saying there /wasn’t/ an explanation given and the point I was trying to make was that /this show shouldn’t be taken so seriously./ There’s plenty of things in this show that can be iffy if people over-analyze it, right down to the behavior of the main characters in some episodes. That’s too off topic to get into here though.
 
As for plot ambiguity…. I generally don’t tend to like this as a defense. Of course it has its uses - it has a lot of proper uses, actually, and it’s a very common tool. But like all tools, it can be abused. I’ve seen a lot of pretentious, egotistical directors and authors hide behind this shield because it’s easy to slap a bunch of shit that doesn’t make sense onto a wall but make it sound like it’s intentionally “deep” or something.
 
Honestly after nine seasons, if there was a good explanation they had for the cutiemark/name thing, they would have had at least one throwaway-line by now. Since they haven’t this takes me back to my original point - the concept of the show and its world just isn’t meant to be taken that seriously. We can write fanfics and headcanons to explain things that were left unspoken, but that’s our own thing. And since the topic we’re talking about is such a weird logical problem, I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s just “clever plot ambiguity”, this particular topic doesn’t seem like a proper use for that for so long since it may be a background element but it’s also weirdly in the core of the basic concept of their world. Maybe for the first few seasons, but the show’s almost over and not even the comic has touched on this weird phenomenon as far as I know.

@Exhumed Legume  
I checked it out, nope, they never called by those names in the show itself. So, both names came from the end credits.

@orbsah  
That’s what they’re named in the Once Upon a Zeppelin credits.  
Don’t remember off the top of my head if the names are used in dialogue.

@Exhumed Legume  
Did those names (Velvet and Night Light) even used in the show?

@CMC Scootaloo  
It’s not a reference to the comics though. That design appeared in the show first.  
 

 
About the game, IDW version is called Oubliettes and Ogres, while in the show they’re called Ogres and Oubliettes.

@Jarkes
 
“The thing with the whole “Nightmare Forces” thing is that Luna says near the end of that arc that she was pretty much lying about the Nightmare Forces having always been a separate entity and that they had always been a part of her that got separated from her somehow.”
 
That’s the thing. That is the thing, the one statement by Luna that is the reason why I defend the canon status of this arc, and the official comics in general, so furiously.  
I can’t see what anyone would find confusing about this arc, but I’m baffled how this one statement was so persistently ignored by nearly everyone, and how it’s still ignored by many even today.  
It’s almost like certain people in the fandom want the official comics to be non-canon.
 
 
“On the other hand, the season 9 premiere pretty blatantly contradicted what the comics did with King Sombra.”
 
I knew everyone would say that the moment I saw the Season 9 Teaser. As someone who was always aware of it that the show and the comics don’t contradict each other, I immediately figured this won’t happen this time either and that there will be some explanation for all this that brings the events in line with the comics.  
First I wrote one analyzis, which I won’t link here because I had to base it off the teaser and the trailer alone and it has since become rendered wrong by the Season 9 Opener, and then I wrote this:
 
ʺThe Beginning of the Endʺ Review/Analysis/Prediction: Why Season 9 will have the Greatest Ruse in Equestrian History!
 
Derived and analyzed from implications that were, at least to me, rather obvious. TL;DR is: Sombra isn’t evil at all and he’s in on a plan by Celestia and Luna to test Twilight and her friends by playing villain and pretending to be evil.
 
Now I don’t know if the rabbit hole will go so deep here that we see Sombra openly admitting to everything and dropping the mask and that we will see Radiant Hope appearing in the show (but really hope for that) and the confirmation might be a very subtle one, but all of these hints combined speak a very clear language.  
There’s also still one other possibility, if it were to turn out that Sombra isn’t part of that plan, but I’m keeping that under wraps for now as everything points to the observations I’ve made being true, so far.

@Goddess Erosia
 
“It may be a cartoon world with magical talking rainbow unicorns, but I still find it hard to believe that so many ponies are given names at birth that coincidentally will have at least something to do with their purpose in life that they discover later.”
 
“Lyra Heartstrings though? How did her parents guess that their baby filly would grow up to be interested in this instrument? How did Snails’s parents know their baby was going to have a thing for snails?”
 
 
For those who reside outside of Equestria, griffons, yaks and even the fabled humans of another world, pony naming culture has always been a mystery. Little it is known in those other lands and kingdoms that, in most cases, the parents do not simply choose a name for their newborn foal. Three days after the birth of the foal, the parents take their newborn baby and undergo a journey to meet the immortal oracle, to receive a look into the future and learn about their foal’s special talent and the cutie mark it will result in.  
They name their foal after what they have seen in this vision of the future, however, they keep the special talent a secret from their foal at all times, as only self-discovery will let their foal grow up properly, and learning the truth from their parents without putting their own effort into discovering it would be detrimental for the independence and self-reliance of foals.
 

 
How about that? What you describe isn’t a plothole (= bad), it is a plot ambiguity (= good), something that simply doesn’t get explained in the show, either because there is not a pressing need for it, because there is no time for it and the creators have to set priorities or because the creators wanted to leave it up to the audience to come up with explanations and theories on their own.  
And it’s not a flaw either. Pretty much every show out there has things that never get explained and, very often, this is done intentionally and on purpose, to give the audience room for imagination and to motivate them to do thoughts about the show they watch. That’s the main thing that keeps fandoms in general alive, finding answers to the unanswered questions. And My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has a ton of plot ambiguities.  
That so many in our fandom shrug these off as plotholes or as plot inconsistencies in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, while most members of other fandoms sit down and seriously analyze their shows, is actually a pretty pathetic display by our fandom.  
We might be the most creative and active fandom in existence fanwork-wise, but when it’s about watching the show, there is a scary lack of imagination in the brony fandom. There are only very few who actually think deep about Equestria, about its lore and its culture.  
And those who do usually get shamed for doing that, because the majority without any imagination feels entitled to tell them it’s ridiculous to do that because, in their minds, there is no answer to find anyway, which sometimes stops people from doing such deep thinking because they start to feel ashamed after they got ridiculed like that.  
Which means there is also a vicious cycle here.

@CMC Scootaloo
 
The thing with the whole “Nightmare Forces” thing is that Luna says near the end of that arc that she was pretty much lying about the Nightmare Forces having always been a separate entity and that they had always been a part of her that got separated from her somehow. But there were a few parts of that storyline that weren’t exactly clear, and the writer of the arc even said herself that she could’ve made it a little clearer. So it’s not EXACTLY a contradiction, more just that it had some semi-confusing parts that made it SEEM like a contradiction at the time, only for us to later learn that at the very least it wasn’t intended to be one, and later storylines in the comics made steps to correct this.
 
On the other hand, the season 9 premiere pretty blatantly contradicted what the comics did with King Sombra. But that was likely because when those comics were written, the show staff didn’t have any plans to bring back Sombra.
 
But really, the easiest way to reconcile it is to just consider the comics an alternate universe that aren’t non-canon, just a separate continuity. Like how there are various different continuities based off of the G1 Transformers characters, but none of them are “non-canon”.

@Goddess Erosia
 
That’s not correct. While they don’t work together directly (DHX writers and IDW writers don’t sit in a meeting room to discuss and to line up the respective episodes and comic issues together), it was said by someone from IDW a while ago that there is a story consultant from Hasbro whose job it is to ensure that the plot of the show, the official comics and the official books fit together and don’t contradict each other. MLP: FiM isn’t simply outsourced to IDW and then they can do whatever they want with it. They still need to adhere to the all-inclusive G4 canon.  
I can’t recall where I’ve seen this statement and who made it and I didn’t screenshot it for some reason. But you can see it very directly in the comics themselves, too.  
It’s strange that this still has to be a matter of discussion, after the Season 7 tie-in rendered the entire argument of comic canon deniers meaningless, but I’m ignoring that for a moment now.  
References to the official comics have been made before Season 7 came around. The #1 ultimate argument of comic canon deniers was always that the comics can reference the show, but that the show never references the comics, which they used as a way to say that there is only a one-sided connection. That didn’t make sense to begin with already, if the official comics are able to display or reference events from the show it’s obvious that these events happened in the same universe and continuity, but it got ditched completely when Season 6 came around.  
Two things that have been famously introduced by the official comics were the game “Ogres and Oubliettes” and that Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle are members of the filly guides. We’ve seen that in the official comics first. And nothing ever indicated that the show could bring that up, which fit to the argument of the comic canon deniers.  
But then Season 6 came and “28 Pranks Later” aired and, big surprise, we did see Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle as filly guides in that episode, for the first time ever in the show:
 
 

 
 
Two episodes later then, “Dungeons & Discords” was an entire episode about Ogres and Oubliettes.
 
It’s also important to keep remembering the origins of how it came to be that the official comics got the reputation of not being canon. The only reason this happened was because the second arc of the official comics was interpreted as a contradiction by its readers, when they saw that Nightmare Moon returned from the moon and took Rarity. They were thinking this meant that the comics portrayed Nightmare Moon as a monster from the moon, rather than a being created by Luna’s mind, since the Nightmare Moon in that arc didn’t come out of Luna, while they actually overlooked a plot point.  
It was in another arc of the official comics, one that ironically came out in 2016 as well, that it was proven that the official comics didn’t contradict the show there, as they showed that Nightmare Moon was still in Luna’s body.  
Luna got soaked with cursed water and, while that same water has simply turned the Mane Six evil before, it freed Nightmare Moon and let her take control of Luna again.  
There isn’t any ground to stand on for comic canon deniers if the same comics that they accused of contradicting Nightmare Moon’s origins portray her origin in the same way as the show did.
 
The bottom line of that is, the belief that the official comics aren’t canon, or, that the show could overrule them and render them non-canon only came to be because of the misinterpretations of the second arc by people who didn’t pay enough attention to it.  
The only reason why there are still so many people clinging to that belief is because they have a hard time letting go of it and accepting that they were in the wrong all along and therefore refuse to do that. It’s so ingrained in the fandom’s collective consciousness by now, that it’s hard to get rid of that belief.

@Mildgyth  

Chiffon Swirl, anyone?

@Mildgyth
 
A logical explanation, but as far as I can remember, we have seen no reference to this cultural phenomenon and it is only reasonable to assume that this is not canon.

@Goddess Erosia
 
Again, Plains Indian naming - It was also possible for one to change their name once they reached maturity, and i don’t doubt the same could probably happen to ponies.

@Exhumed Legume
 
 
Placeholders, and also kind of plotholes. Or logic problems, whatever you want to call these weird things that are a bit too hard to believe when you think about it. Things not meant to be taken too seriously.
 
The show isn’t perfect. There’s some logical problems here and there, like I said with the cutiemark thing. It may be a cartoon world with magical talking rainbow unicorns, but I still find it hard to believe that so many ponies are given names at birth that coincidentally will have at least something to do with their purpose in life that they discover later. Even if it isn’t true for all of them.
 
Some things in the show are more within the realm of believability, like Applejack. She came from a family of apple farmers, so okay, it was a lucky guess. Lyra Heartstrings though? How did her parents guess that their baby filly would grow up to be interested in this instrument? How did Snails’s parents know their baby was going to have a thing for snails?
 
Actually that old one’s a bit mean because it’s kind of a joke about his mental capacity

@orbsah  
Would you also say the canonical names of Twilight Velvet and Night Light were previously Mrs Sparkle and Mr Sparkle?  
Those are placeholders, not names.

Can qe at least make sure their last names end with shy. Since their mister and misses shy

@Exhumed Legume  
Mr. and Mrs. Shy are their canon names.

@zidders
 
bruh.

@zidders  
Because they don’t have canon names?

@Goddess Erosia  

 
What? When was that stated? Seems odd that they would have made it onto the final polls if that was the case (or at the very least removed partway through).
 
EDIT: You said “should”. Didn’t catch that.

Not sure why their canon names aren’t good enough and less confusing but OK.

@CMC Scootaloo
 
The status is and always have been “canon until its not”, meaning that it’s assumed canon until the show decides to take the liberty and conflict with that canon because its writers have more control over the IP than IDW. The comic writers themselves have said this several times on their twitters. This is a very common dynamic people can see with stories that are overseen by more than one studio or company.
 
As for Trixie’s mom’s name I agree, forcing the Lulamoon name in doesn’t make sense. It IS canon that some ponies do actually share inspired names (Twilight Velvet, Twilight Sparkle), pony society does not seem to use family names to reflect family identity in the same way humans do, or at least not strictly. Not even in EQG because everyone copies over the same names there.
 
Lulamoon being a shared family name wouldn’t be a bad idea of Trixie’s mom looked like a night person but she doesn’t, and in the world of MLP names are primarily given based on the appearance of the pony and SOMETIMES (but not strictly) because of their cutiemarks.
 
That last part was always kind of a plot/logic hole because its weird that ponies can know what to name each other at birth before a cutiemark is even earned and it’s also canon that some ponies can change their cutiemarks if they reach like a midlife crisis or something because of a couple lines from season…1 or 2 I think. One of the early CMC episodes. But regardless that’s just a weird thing about MLP that we’ve all accepted. The cutiemark itself can have influences on the name of the person.
 
I’m not as keen on the name that’s currently winning for Trixie’s mom compared to options like Summer Showcase but I’m more okay with it than the second place option of leaving her unnamed and I’m disappointing that so many people went for the ah-hah funny meme on that one because there was a very real possibility that she could have gone unnamed. The lulamoon names should have been banned for going against canon though.

@SaviorAssassin1996
 
They are canon and always have been. You shouldn’t believe every crap you hear in the fandom.

@Mr grump  
Not to mention, people are trying to force it to fit due to thinking it should be like how people name kids. on top of the fact, that some of the names on the poll are just not that great and pushed out much better names that would have worked out.

@Wiimeiser  
Besides, let’s face it. Parents and children of MLP do not actually share names more often than not.

@Wiimeiser  
It’s a lovely name. For Trixie. But it doesn’t fit Trixies mum in any way.
 
Trixies mum has warm summer colours and a sunflower for a cutie Mark. In what way would a name that evokes the moon fit her? It makes no sense. Ponies don’t pass on surnames. Trixie and her mom sharing a name is unnecessary.