Why would they want it to seem less militaristic? Why don't officers and soldiers in Earth armies call each other by their first names? Everyone knows who's in charge anyway...
Why are also those people named Ensign dying? And why do they end up in red shirts so often? Seriously tho, Elmo is a joke... and Gul Dukat works for me because I think of him by what he does from his position, not off duty usually... when I can... O.O
Skrain, definitely. While working, of course he's Gul, but the man has to have a first name, right? Also, Skrain sounds raw and harsh, a good fit for Dukat. Elmo is just ridiculous and I've never liked that furry red ball anyway. Oh, DevilEyes, don't forget Gul Evek!
Definitely Skrain. I'm reading the Terok Nor series right now and I couldn't imagine his first name as anything else. It fits more than Elmo and really...Skrain Dukat...it's kinda sexy. Okay, I said it.
I wonder if there's a group of people who would vehemently argue that Elmo Dukat is !!canon!! ... Probably.
I think by the end of the series we, and many of the characters know him well enough to at least know his first name. Certainly Andy Robinson does.
Cosmo? Isn't that Palpatine's first name? It's always going to be Skrian for me, it reads and sounds genuinely Cardassian but slightly...wrong and off putting. Gul Re'jal hit the nail on the head with the 'fingers on a chalkboard' analogy. Whereas Corat seems to work well for Damar...
Well, I think that for Gul Dukat, it's supposed to be offputting and creepy. He is a sick bastard. (Yet I have managed to hear it with a totally different tone for my AU Dukat. )
^ Indeed, for 'our' Dukat I imagine a stress on the first two letters Skrain, whereas for your Dukat I hear Skrain when spoken aloud. And who doesn't like the rain?
One of the many wrongs in Star Trek is that writers and fans insist that everyone, including aliens, have first names and last names.
The Vulcans don't. The Tellarites have three names, I think, and the Klingons only have one name too. There's probably lots more with just one name.
When I first came across Skrain as Dukat's first name, I really hated it. But it's grown on me now, and I can't think of him as anything else. I agree with Thor Damar, too, Corat seems a perfect fit for Damar.