Law of Alien Names: Difference between revisions

** 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!)

** In the novelization of the "reboot" movie ''[[Star Trek]]'', Nero explains that Romulan names are all but impossible for humans to pronounce correctly, so it is customary to render them into English by pronouncing the closest phonetic equivalent ''backwards'' (Which Romulans find less grating than hearing their names consistently butchered). Nero's name is really closer to "Oren", but the "r" can not be faithfully reproduced by a human.

*** In an interesting coincidence, this means that Sela, the half-Romulan daughter of Tasha Yar, may actually be named something close to "[[Alice Allusion|Alice]]".

*** Bolian names tend to be one or two syllables.

** In fact, most races and cultures show patterns in their naming, often subtle ones. It is possible in many cases to identify a character's species or culture by name alone.

** Oddly enough, even though he's an alien, Jonas Quinn has a rather Earthly-sounding name. The actor's name is Corin Nemec. Does that seem right to you?

*** 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.

* [[Superman|Superman's]] cousin is named Kara, which is an example of the trope, but an odd one in that the name became popular in English as an actual name after the introduction of the character, to the point where on ''[[Smallville]]'' she just calls herself Kara and there's nothing weird about the name. In truth, it isn't actually alien, rather of Proto-Italo-Celtic origin (Italian "beloved", Irish "friend"), but as stated above, it was hardly ever used as a given name until Supergirl made it popular.

* Despite the name being Japanese in origin, Garamos (translated here as Galamoth) from the ''[[Castlevania]]'' series fits the above naming example almost perfectly.

** The planet Raxacoricofallipatorius

** The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe.

** From [[Spoonerism|Larwordia,]] no less.

* Extra-terrestrial ''[[Power Rangers]]'' have names like Andros, Zhane, Karone, Maya, Trip, [[Punny Name|Kat Manx, Anubis "Doggie" Kruger,]] and Tyzonn.

** And then there's the Andalites, whose names run the gamut, but are always at least three part. Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, anyone?

*** The middle name is from one of the parent middle names, if you look at Ax's parents' names in ''The Alien''.

** All male dragonrider's names have an apostrophe stuck in: their names are shortened forms of their pre-Impression names. A prequel novel tells us that it is the dragons that first started doing this and that they, at the time, shortened the names of both men and women. Shortened names are meant to be easier and quicker to shout while in the air, which explains why the dragons turned Falarran into F’lar. (The danger of mishearing names is apparently not as important.) After Jaxom Impresses Ruth, Lessa<ref>Additional capital letters available at reception upon request</ref> wryly notes that weyrwomen usually choose names that produce something nice when shortened: J’xom and Jax’m don't quite cut it, to her ears. ([[Fridge Logic]]: J’om is dead easy.)

* Averting this was the original inspiration for Robert Heinlen's ''[[Stranger in A Strange Land]]'', to the point where the original title was "A Martian Named Smith".

* ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (Comic Book)|Legion of Super-Heroes]]'' has a lot of made-up or spelling altered names: Tinya, Brin, Luornu, Jo Nah, Wimena... to name a few.

* Discussed in ''[[Gentlemen Broncos]]'', in which a sci-fi writer orders a class of young writers to name their characters things like this, insisting a girl rename her character, Teacup, Tylonious.

** [[Word of God]] has it that the names are internally consistent based on a scheme of the author's own.

* Parodied in a [[Forgotten Realms]] short story in which an illusion-masked Volo visits Menzoberranzan. Asked his name by a drow official, he barks out a made-up series of Xs and Zs that he hopes will sound sufficiently drow-like. {{spoiler|He gets busted, not because his random choice of syllables is complete unpronounceable nonsense, but because it's a ''female name'' for dark elves.}}