Named After Their Planet: Difference between revisions

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* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'': Used with the Namekians, but averted with the Saiyans, whose planet is called Vegeta.

** Though one of the Saiyans is named Vegeta (Jr.)... Because his father, the King of Saiyans, conquered the whole planet and named it after himself.

* Subject of a gag in ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'': When Tenchi first meets Sasami, he immediately assumes that she's come from a planet called Sasami. Why he jumps to this conclusion is a bit of a headscratcher, though to be fair he was having kind of a bad day and probably wasn't thinking straight.

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*** That brings up a bit of [[Fridge Logic]]: How do the Andalites determine which of the regularly-shaped objects orbiting a star count as planets? We had trouble with that, and we ''live'' here. (Though it's possible that the Sol system has an unusual amount of big chunks of rocky debris floating around at its edge.)

* ''Espada da Galáxia'' subverted this by having both Terrestrials and Metalians call themselves 'humans' on first contact. They agree to call themselves after their origin planets thereafter.

* In the ''[[Sector General]]'' books, everyone calls his race "human" and his homeworld "Earth" when run through the translator. Every race is given a four-letter code that describes their environment and requirements. Generally, the other species are named after their world but humans are just called "Earth-humans" suggesting that either [[Humans Are Special]], or they're just unimaginative.

** Or that unlike other species they are not limited to a single planet?

** Perhaps the books (written in human languages, as far as I'm aware) simply suffer from the same translation problems outside of the fourth wall as the characters do inside. Maybe if the books were written in a Kelgian language, Kelgians would be referred to as "Earth-Humans", with our species being referred to as [[DBD Gs]] or whatever the Kelgian word for our planet is.

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** While one might assume that the [[The Greys|asgard]] hail from Othala, it's not explicitly stated that this is their homeworld. In fact, it's not even stated that Ida is their home galaxy. Given that they can galaxy-hop in minutes, it's not inconceivable to assume they could have come from yet another galaxy.

* Every alien race from ''[[Babylon 5]]''.

** Well, the major ones (Minbari/Minbar, Centauri/Centauri Prime, Narn/Narn Homeworld or Narn). The League worlds are often exceptions. The Drazi are from Zhabar, the Pak'ma'ra from Melat, the Hurr from Androma, the Llort from Vartas, the Gaim from N'chak'fah, the Hyach from Shri-shraba, the Onteen from Aicha, the Abbai from Ssumssha, the Yolu from Pa'ri, etc. Then again, we have Brakos for the Brakiri, Vreetan for the Vree and Gromahk for the Grome.

** According to [[Word of God]], "Centauri" is a misnomer of sorts - the first human/Centauri contact occurred in the Alpha Centauri system, and the humans assumed the Centauri home planet was in that area. It wasn't, but the term stuck in the English language.

** [[Abusive Precursors|The Shadows]] come from Z'ha'dum, although their true name is unknown. They just like everybody calling them "Shadows".

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== Video Games ==

* ''[[~~Starcraft~~]]'' averts this nicely. The Protoss used to live on Aiur and the original Zerg homeworld is called Zerus, but they seem to like Char. The Terrans, while originally from Earth, had their capital on Tarsonis. Humans from Earth still refer to themselves and terrans as (hu)mankind.

* ''[[StarCraft]]'' averts this nicely. The Protoss used to live on Aiur and the original Zerg homeworld is called Zerus, but they seem to like Char. The Terrans, while originally from Earth, had their capital on Tarsonis. Humans from Earth still refer to themselves and terrans as (hu)mankind.

* ''[[Star Control]]'' uses this pretty consistently, the only species named for their homeworld are the (extinct at game start) Algolites (on Algol, duh) and they're named as such by your exploration team.

* ''[[Halo]]'' mostly averts this, with only the Sangheili (Elites) having a similarly named homeworld, Sanghelios.

* Averted in ''[[Mass Effect]]'': here are the known races and their homeworlds: [[Green-Skinned Space Babe|asari]] - Thessia, [[Heavyworlder|elcor]] - Dekuuna, [[Starfish Aliens|hanar]] - Kahje, [[Extra Eyes|batarians]] - Khar'shan, [[Space Romans|turians]] - Palaven, [[The Reptilians|drell]] - Rakhana, quarians - Rannoch, [[Bee People|rachni]] - Suen, [[The Greys|salarian]] - Sur'Kesh, [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|krogan]] - Tuchanka, [[Proud Merchant Race|volus]] - Irune, raloi (mentioned in a news report) - Turvess, yahg - Parnack. All species names are notably uncapitalized too.

* ''[[Master of Orion]]'' allows you to name your homeworld, although it still offers the default name. The only race that fits this trope are the [[Cyborg|Meklar]], whose homeworld is Meklon, the Gnolam, hailing from Gnol, and the [[Fish People|Trilarians]] of Trilar. The other races have noticeably different homeworld names from their race name. Examples include the [[Bee People|Klackon]] from Kholdan, the [[Lizard Folk|Sakkra]] from [[Sssssnaketalk|Sssla]], the [[Everything Is Worse With Bears|Bulrathi]] from Ursa, the [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|Darlok]] from Nazin, the [[Lady Land|Elerians]] from Draconis, and, of course, the humans from Sol.

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* In ''[[Futurama]]'', we're "Earthicans." There are also Decapodians (Decapod 10), Amphibiosans (Amphibios 9), Neptunians, Omicronians (Omicron Persei 8), Osirians (Osiris 4), Martians, Amazonians (Amazonia) and Cygnoids (Cygnos 5). The Nibblonians are a notable exception, originating on the Planet Eternium.

** Of course, [[A Form You Are Comfortable With|that's not actually what they're called]].

** Also [[Played With]]—Amy, for example, has been called a Martian. She's a human who was born on Mars. It's the ''Native'' Martians who are a separate species.

* In ''[[Invader Zim]]'', the Irkens are from Irk. Amusingly, Zim follows a version of the trope himself: before landing on Earth he referred to its inhabitants as "Earthenoids," and referred to the extinct Martians as "Marsoids."

** The species from planet Vort are referred to as Vorts. ([[Beam Me Up, Scotty|Not Vortians]].) [[Averted]] with the creatures from Blorch, [[Descriptively Named Species|which are called]] [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|the Slaughtering Rat People]].

* The ''[[Thundercats]]'' were the elite warriors/nobility of the Thunderian people on their home planet of, surprise, surprise, Thundera. It doesn't stop there; the word "thunder" shows up ''a lot'' when stuff regarding that species gets involved. Ah, cartoons of [[The Eighties]]...

** This is also averted with the Mutants, who hailed from Plundarr.

* An extreme version was used in ''[[South Park]]'', where not only were the inhabitants of an alien planet called Marklars, but ''all'' [[SMURFING|marklars were replaced with the marklar "marklar"]].

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== Real Life ==

* The only sentient species we know of, the human race, has its English name from the Latin "humanus" by way of French. The ultimate origin is thought to be Proto-Indo-European dhǵhem- which means "earth". Furthermore, in biblical Hebrew, the word for "man," Adam, comes from the word for "earth," Adama.

** Please note, however, that in both cases, that's "earth" with a lower-case "e," i.e. soil. In the Hebrew instance, it's a transparent reference to the [[The Bible|Biblical]] story of God creating the first man (Adam) out of clay.

*** For reference, the Hebrew word for "Earth" (the planet) is ''Eretz'', which, confusingly enough, also means "land," both as in "land you build on/farm" and "a country". ''Kador Eretz'', meaning "Earth Sphere", is used in modern Hebrew to refer to the planet specifically.

*** Same with the French word, ''Terre''.

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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Alien Tropes]]

[[Category:~~Named After Their Planet~~]]

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