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On this earth, there are two parallel worlds. One is the plane of existence, and the other is the plane of spirit. Of course, if you go into deep philosophy or follow the writings of great witches like Morgan Oswald, the meanings of these realms and their complementary but dependent existences might start to make your hair grow white. To sum up (and perhaps oversimplify), the physical world in which we exist is the Outer Strata and the world from which magic, mana, and spirit originate is called the Inner Strata.[break][break]

These worlds, while separate, are constantly influencing each other. Sometimes, when a child is born in the outer strata, the speculated extreme levels of energy of the inner strata burst out, and a portion of spirit, mana, and magic are passed along with that child into the world. And so the familiar emerges with them-- a huge mass of spirit that is given physical form by the human host, and the human is given magic by the familiar residing inside.
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And thus, a witch is born.[break][break]

Often, magic is minor and hardly revealing until a witch reaches puberty, which is when the familiar's existence becomes more apparent. The witch will begin to finally hear a voice inside their head, and finally, be able to communicate with their familiar, but still be unable to materialize or use their domain effectively. Depending on the familiar, communication and growth can be very difficult for a young witch, and though attempts are often made to institutionalize "familiar growth" through counselors, it is still regarded by society as a "personal quest."
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A familiar can be difficult to control, standoffish, arrogant, or plain condescending, often leading to violent outbursts in an adolescent witch or frustration at their own inability to tame their spirit. Of course, some can be immediately supportive or even entirely accepting, though there is usually some kind of conflict that begins with the entrance of the familiar into the life of a witch. This tussle for power ends with a contract spoken simply in the familiar's 'true' name -- a typically complex string of one or two words. Once that name is shared, the familiar and witch symbolically accept each other and become one. This usually happens over a long period of internal conflict and often a lot of magical accidents, and marks the end of "magical adolescence" in young witches, usually at 15-16 years of age. Usually, once this finishes, familiars can be made to materialize at will and witches begin to show a greater understanding or control over their birth domain, which continues to develop until the end of overall adolescence.
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A familiar's name, once shared, becomes a very guarded secret. Witches make up their own pet names to call their familiar because anyone that knows of the witch's familiar's real name can force the familiar to materialize by uttering it. A witch that knows the familiar's name and also owns it, however, can make their familiar materialize by just thinking their name or asking it to-- in fact, speaking it out loud is often an act of forced submission against the familiar. Witches that have been forced to reveal their familiar's name to others have reported a feeling of their guts twisting and their knees feeling weak when the familiar was made appear by someone else, showing that the act of submission can apply in a different way as well.
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The only time it is considered socially acceptable to share your familiar's name is during a marriage ceremony, where the witches to be married whisper the names of their familiars into each other's ears. However, with the rise of divorce and independence in witch society, some ceremonies have begun to omit this particular rite in fear of the consequences post-marriage.