Aliens with one name vs. aliens with two names

[Melakon]

iguana_tonante wrote:

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Beside, there are people (I mean real people, humans) with only one name, three, or four.

Or more. As in, Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi.

[t_smitts]

Christopher wrote:

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The Pocket novels of recent years have established fuller naming conventions for Andorians, and Tellarites (in fact, I happen to be the one who came up with the Tellarite naming pattern now used in the books, or at least the prototype for it). The '80s novels established fuller names for Klingons (in John M. Ford's The Final Reflection and Romulans (in Diane Duane's Rihannsu novels), but those naming patterns aren't generally used in tie-ins anymore. But you still do see Romulans in the novels with two names. The current Praetor in the novel continuity is Gell Kamemor, and the books have given the Romulan Commander from "The Enterprise Incident" the name Liviana Charvanek.

Canon has established that a Klingon's full name includes a patronymic/house designator, such as "Worf, Son of Mogh." (Although since he was adopted, his full legal name should be Worf Rozhenko.) I sometimes wonder if "Sarek, child of Skon, child of Solkar" is a translation of the full Vulcan family name.

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Alexander was named by his mother, and I'm guessing she was following human naming conventions since she didn't particularly care about Klingon tradition.

About Romulan names: The character of Valdore (who appeared in ENT) is, in the novels, given the full name of Valdore i'Kaleh tr'Ihaimehn. Perhaps Romulans follow naming conventions similar to those used in certain Spanish speaking countries, in which a person uses both their mother and father's last names? (for example, the ex-Yankee Bernie Williams, his full name is Bernabé Williams Figueroa)

As for the Jem'Hadar: I heard that Jem'Hadar names are assigned by their First who is the commander of their unit. Is this true? I swear I read that in some novel.

I guess that'll depend on what books, if any, that one considers canon.

-Brett- wrote:

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Not entirely true. Off the top of my head, there's Alidar Jarok (not to be confused with the poster here). Senator Cretak was referred to as "Kimura" or something to that effect, it's been forever since I've seen that episode. From context, it sounded like a given name.

I think Romulans have naming conventions similar to humans, we just rarely get on a first name basis with any of them.

Did you read my initial post?

I think we should also remember that Earth has many different cultures and naming customs. For some of the above species, if they hail from a certain region of their world, they might be two-named, while most of the rest are one-named.

In general, however, I still personally lean towards the requirement that not just one or two, but several individuals (if not most) mentioned from a species must have two names to consider that a two-named species.

[Timo]

I think we should also remember that Earth has many different cultures and naming customs.

Yes, let's not forget our very human examples of "nonstandard" usage: Geordi LaForge and Tasha Yar.

Apparently, it is culturally appropriate and even desirable to refer to these individuals as "Geordi" or "Tasha" rather than "LaForge" or "Yar" in most contexts, including the ones where others are called "Riker" or "Doctor Crusher" or "Commander Troi".

In terms of today, Geordi would be Geordi because he has too many second, third, eleventh or surnames to fit in a standard application form or the back of one's volleyball playing shirt. It's a "Latin" custom to use the first given name in official context today.

In turn, Tasha would be Tasha because it's the polite form of address in modern Russian to use one's given name in its full form, with or without patronymic and definitely without surname; to use the short form of the given name is less formal but still more respectful than using the surname without a title. And it's possible that Tasha is the full form of the officer's name, rather than a shortening of Natasha or Anastasiya, considering this is the future.

When Will is Will, this is simply informal, that is, less formal than when Tasha is Tasha. That is, supposing that Tasha is Tasha's full given name. And I can see why Tasha wouldn't want to use a patronymic. Just saying Yar would be considered rather rude, actually, while Lieutenant Yar would be acceptable but formal close to the point of rudeness in many contexts.

Apparently, Starfleet does ask its officers for personal-cultural preferences in this respect...

Timo Saloniemi

[MacLeod]

KamenRiderBlade wrote:

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So here's the thing I always found interesting about human last names.

Traditionally, most family's just take the father's last name for the children and wife.

Doesn't that seem kind of antiquated? Imagine what if humans went by a different route way back in the past and it followed onto today.

Imagine if the children had both parents first name as their last names but with a hyphen seperating the two parents name?

It would be a unqiue way of naming and have a consistant way of passing down family heritage.

If we take one example a male and female marrying, there is nothing to say that the male can't adopt the females surname as the family name. Though more often than not it is the males family name which is adopted.

Similary a double-barrelled name combining the two surnames could be adopted.

[Ro_Laren]

teacake wrote:

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Vulcans have more than one name, it's just the surname is unpronouncable by humans.

In what episode or movie did they say that?

[The Wormhole]

^^Journey to Babel, I think.

[Robert D. Robot]

In "This Side of Paradise", we get this bit of dialog:

Leila Kolomi: You never told me if you had another name, Mr Spock?
Spock: You couldn't pronounce it.

(Of course, maybe Leila had some unusual speech impediment not obvious on screen, and Spock meant only that SHE couldn't pronounce it!)

[Christopher]

^You're both right. In "This Side of Paradise," Spock told Leila that she couldn't pronounce his other name, and in "Journey to Babel," when Kirk addressed Amanda as "Mrs. Sarek," she told him that the Vulcan family name is hard for humans to pronounce, though she could say it "after a fashion and after many years of practice." Both were written by D.C. Fontana.

[E-DUB]

Then of course, there are the Cardassians. Two names, Natima Lang, Enabrin Tain, Elim Garak. Damar and Dukat only got given names in the lit-verse (unless I'm mistaken).

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ And Kotan Pa'Dar.

[Tora Ziyal]

Timo wrote:

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Yes, let's not forget our very human examples of "nonstandard" usage: Geordi LaForge and Tasha Yar.

Apparently, it is culturally appropriate and even desirable to refer to these individuals as "Geordi" or "Tasha" rather than "LaForge" or "Yar" in most contexts, including the ones where others are called "Riker" or "Doctor Crusher" or "Commander Troi".

In terms of today, Geordi would be Geordi because he has too many second, third, eleventh or surnames to fit in a standard application form or the back of one's volleyball playing shirt. It's a "Latin" custom to use the first given name in official context today.

In turn, Tasha would be Tasha because it's the polite form of address in modern Russian to use one's given name in its full form, with or without patronymic and definitely without surname; to use the short form of the given name is less formal but still more respectful than using the surname without a title. And it's possible that Tasha is the full form of the officer's name, rather than a shortening of Natasha or Anastasiya, considering this is the future.

Memory Alpha, Wikipedia and StarTrek.com all say her name is Natasha, but I have no idea what they base that on.

[Christopher]

The name "Natasha" was used for Yar in three episodes: "Code of Honor" (used by Picard, Yareena, and Riker), "Coming of Age" (by Picard when introducing her to Adm. Quinn), and "Skin of Evil" (by Picard twice during her memorial service).

[Tora Ziyal]

^Thank you. Haven't watched in a while.

[JoeZhang]

With the age of the Federation, you'd expected to see more names drift across culture - I think we have seen a Vulcan called Stephen but when are we going to see a Bolian called Wayne or a human called Spock?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ There was a Klingon named Chang...