The word lirrax is a portmanteau of lirr (queen) and rax (king), and is derived from a proverb from the ancestors of the lirrax - a'mun tak lir, a'kan tak rax, which translates very roughly as, "any woman can be a queen, [and] any man can be a king". It was a phrase that alluded to a central tenet of classical lirrax philosophy - that all lirrax have worth, though men and women are meant to occupy different roles in society.