Law of Alien Names: Difference between revisions

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* ''[[Mass Effect]]'''s characters generally follow this trope to a T. Garrus, Liara, Wrex, Kal'Reegar, Tali'Zorah... There are simply too many examples to list.

** In the original series, there seemed to be a specific rule about this. ''Every'' named Klingon had a name beginning with K, while male Vulcans had names beginning with S and ending in K, with three letters in the middle, and females had names beginning with T'. ''Enterprise'' stuck to this mostly, as did the earlier movies (with the exception of Saavik, a half Vulcan-half Romulan woman, and Maltz, a Klingon crewman). Worf broke the pattern.

*** A [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade]] is hung on the similarity of Vulcan names in the [[Expanded Universe]] novel "The Lost Years", which explains that the S--K pattern is in honor of Surak. In a flashback, a contemporary rival of Surak berates another Vulcan (who has just changed his own name to fit the pattern), pointing out as the years go by, Surak's followers are going to have to come up with increasingly ridiculous names. Also note: Assuming that their alphabet has 26 letters, this allows for only 17576 distinct male Vulcan names. (And this includes names without vowels!)

*** Many of the aliens on the show are really humans, and descended from natives of Earth. While their cultures had millennia to evolve independently, the presence of significant cultural continuity with Earth is a common plot point. This means the show has its own "Laws of Names," with character names being one (of ''many'') hints as to what ancient Earth culture their ancestors represented.

*** Even ''more'' oddly, it's the ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' (which takes place in ''this'' galaxy) characters who are likely to follow the Law, but in ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', a great many aliens have two names and stay far from the [[Punctuation Shaker]]. Milky Way, we get Teal'c, Shak'l, Fro'tak, and all those -n names (most of the above list comes from SG-1.) Pegasus, we get Acastus Kolya, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, Lucius Lavin, the aforementioned Ladon Radim... okay, there ''are'' still several -n names, but it's not as ubiquitous. Earth-style names are actually quite unusual for the Milky Way. You're still hard-pressed to find women whose given names don't end with A, though.

* ''[[The Inheritance Trilogy]]'' is full of these: the hero's kingdom of Alagaesia, an evil emperor/king named Galbatorix, hideous mooks called Ra'zac, brutish orc-like creatures called Urgals, a beautiful elf named Arya and homeland of the elves Alalea.

* ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy]]'' gives us Vlhurgs, G'Gugvunts and Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax (whose army is called something even scarier).

** The planet Raxacoricofallipatorius

** The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe.

* Subverted somewhat in ''[[Galactik Football]]'' where all the aliens have names like Warren and Nealy and the heroes have names like D'Jok, Sinedd and MicroIce.

* The ''[[Ringworld]]'' series by Larry Niven has an Engineer race with names like Halrloprillalar, Harkabeeparolyn and Kawaresksenjajok.

* Averted in the Mike Baron & Steve Rude comic ''[[Comicbook/Nexus|Nexus]]'', where most of the aliens have names like Dave, Fred, Sinclaire, and Tyrone. Fred eventually converts to Judaism and changes his name to Judah.

* All the [[Our Orcs Are Different|Orsimer]] in ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' have names like "Bug gro-Muzgob". Nobody is surprised. Ditto goes for Wood Elves, High Elves, Argonians and Khajiits. The rest of the races are more down-to-earth: Bretons had old Briton names that were replaced in ''[[Oblivion]]'' by French names, Dunmers have Assyrian-sounding names, Imperial names are [[Canis Latinicus]], Nord names are Viking-like, and Redguard names are pretty much normal Anglo-Saxon.

** ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' offers an explanation for Orcs. "Burz" is the given name, "Kash" is his home stronghold.

** As of Skyrim, Redgaurd naming conventions and culture have become a mixture of Arabic and Moorish. They now have names like Nazir, Saadia, and Iman. The latter being Arabic for 'faith'.