Species with descriptive names

[Extrocomp]

We all know about the Romulans, a species based around the idea of the Roman Empire in space. Lots of stories have tried to create explanations for this ranging from Diane Duane's Rihanssu, FASA's Rom'lnz, LUG's Rom'laas, David Goodman's Rom A'losh and Christopher L. Bennett's Rom'ielln.

But what about the other species with descriptive names?

There's the Hermat, a hermaphroditic race from New Frontier.
The Brikar, a race with rock-like skin also from New Frontier.
The Triexians, a three-legged race also from New Frontier.
The Zhuik, an insectoid race from Debtor's Planet (zhuk is the Russian word for beetle).
The Pa'uyk, a spider-like race from Infiltrator (pauk is the Russian word for spider).
The Escherites, a centipede-like race from Ex Machina (based on the centipedes in M.C. Escher's artwork).
The Fenrisal, a wolf-like race from the Novelverse (Fenris or Fenrir is a giant wolf in Norse mythology).
The Varkolak, a wolf-like race from The Assassination Game (varkolak is the Bulgarian word for werewolf).
The Solanae, a solanogen-based race from Star Trek Online.
The Violaceans, a violet or purple-skinned race from Star Trek Online.

Am I missing any?

What do you guys think of descriptive names for alien species? Cool in-joke or a problem that a later writer has to fix?

There's also a few notable aversions:

The Felidae from Star Trek Ongoing, who are birds, not cats.
The Pacari, also from Star Trek Ongoing, who are insects, not pigs.
The G'kkau from Dragon's Honor, who, although they are reptilian, look more like crocodiles than geckos.

 

[James Swallow]

I've done this a couple of times...
The Dinac in Sight Unseen are a species of fox-like humanoids; their name is 'Canid' spelt backwards, a term for mammals of the dog family, which includes foxes.
The Ciari (also in Sight Unseen) are more a social subgroup of the Solanae than an actual species, but they're named after actor Brian Ciari, who played one of the "fish monks" in the TNG episode 'Schisms'.

 

[Christopher]

What do you guys think of descriptive names for alien species? Cool in-joke or a problem that a later writer has to fix?

I think it should only be done with species that don't have human-pronounceable names of their own, like the Escherites, Solanae, or Medusans, where the names were coined by humans to refer to them. It's only a problem when it's presented as the species' own name for themselves. (Or, conversely, when species without phonetic speech are given "alien" phonetic names like Horta or Elachi.)

I've always assumed, as Diane Duane did, that "Romulan" was intended by Paul Schneider to be the name humans gave to the species, based on the fact that they came from twin planets, which humans chose to name after Romulus and Remus from mythology. After all, "Balance of Terror" claimed that the two species had never met directly and had little communication, so it stands to reason that humans didn't learn their indigenous name, or didn't care to use it because they were an enemy. Plus it's a longstanding tradition for human astronomers to use names from mythology for stars and planets, so it was implicit in BoT that a mythology-based name for exoplanets would be a continuation of that practice. It didn't become a problem until Enterprise: "Minefield" established explicitly, and with bizarre cultural illiteracy, that it was their name for themselves.

We can assume the same goes for a species name like "Caitian" or "Saurian," or for any species named after their home planet -- that human explorers gave them those names for convenience and pronounceability and that they have different names of their own. Like how the people we English-speakers call "Indians" are actually Bharati and the people we call "Japanese" are Nihonjin. "Brikar" might well be a human coinage as well.


One weird example that should be on your list: Ferengi. It's the Arabic and Persian word for a European, derived from "Frank" (an archaic term for the French).

 

[Therin of Andor]

Am I missing any?

The Caitians (TAS), felinoids of Cait in the Lynx constellation.

The Edoans/Edosians (TAS), a three-legged race, come from Trianguli-Rho, according to "Star Trek Maps".

Most of the alien ambassadors in the novel, "Death's Angel": including Hotep, who looked like a little pyramid; a crocodile-like Gavialian (a gavial is a fish-eating crocodile); a black felinoid called Neko; and Sirenia, a Cetacean.

Peter David's The Dogs of War ("New Frontier") look like dogs.
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Dogs_of_War

 

[Stevil2001]

Not Star Trek, but Terry Nation went all out on this kind of thing in Doctor Who: the ocean planet of Marinus, the desert planet of Aridius.

 

[Christopher]

The Edoans/Edosians (TAS), a three-legged race, come from Trianguli-Rho, according to "Star Trek Maps".

Rather, 92 Trianguli-Rho, presumably meant to be a dim star in the constellation Triangulum. It was Arex's Lincoln Enterprises biography from 1974 that first established Arex's home planet as Edos "in the Triangulum constellation, on the rim of the galaxy." Which I suppose would mean it's a star in the direction of Triangulum but much further than the currently known stars therein, which would explain the high number, since Triangulum is a rather small constellation that doesn't have anywhere near 92 listed stars. And I don't know what that random "Rho" at the end is supposed to mean.

 

[David cgc]

It didn't become a problem until Enterprise: "Minefield" established explicitly, and with bizarre cultural illiteracy, that it was their name for themselves.

The really weird part of that episode is Hoshi mispronounces "Romulan" when translating what she just heard a Romulan say to her. Which implies something like this:

ROMULAN: Blarg blarg argle wort Romalin!
HOSHI: They say they've annexed this planet in the name of something called "the Romalin Star Empire."
T'POL: "Romulan." It's pronounced, "Romulan."
HOSHI: I'm pretty sure he said "Romalin," but okay.

 

[Markonian]

Brikar is a Human term? Does it refer to brick = rock?

In STO, Species 8472, after infiltrating the Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers for years, call themselves Undine - which is specifically referenced as meaning “fluid” in Greek in The Needs of the Many.

Also in STO, Species 6339 call themselves the Octanti. They’re are from a region called Octant.

Same game, the Romulans name a species, derogatory with a Human language word (add insult to injury), Elachi, which means mushroom.

At the Antarian Trans-stellar Rallye, the Voyager crew dubbed the brown, Benzitoid species taking part in the race the Imhotep.

In german, Vulcan and volcano are the same word, Vulkan. Confused me as kid what was so volcanic about Spock and Tuvok.

 

[Jinn]

While we're talking about Brikar, Rok-Tahk seems like the laziest name possible for the talking rock person.

 

[Christopher]

Brikar is a Human term? Does it refer to brick = rock?

That has not been established as far as I know. I merely speculate that it could be. It would be less of a coincidence that way.

In STO, Species 8472, after infiltrating the Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers for years, call themselves Undine - which is specifically referenced as meaning “fluid” in Greek in The Needs of the Many.

Not quite; it was coined by the alchemist Paracelsus to refer to a water elemental, and has been used by later fantasy writers to refer to water nymphs or mermaids. It's derived from the Latin word for "wave," as in "undulation."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undine

Also in STO, Species 6339 call themselves the Octanti. They’re are from a region called Octant.

That's unlikely. Octans (meaning the Octant, what a surprise) is one of the classical constellations, the possessive form being Octantis. More likely humans would have coined the name to refer to a species from that constellation (although since the stars in constellations are not actually associated with each other except by their apparent proximity in Earth's sky, the "region" defined by any constellation is a wedge extending infinitely outward from Earth -- really more a direction than a region).

Same game, the Romulans name a species, derogatory with a Human language word (add insult to injury), Elachi, which means mushroom.

Oh, is that where it's supposed to come from?

In german, Vulcan and volcano are the same word, Vulkan. Confused me as kid what was so volcanic about Spock and Tuvok.

Vulcan was originally the name of a conjectural planet that astronomers once speculated might exist between the Sun and Mercury, to account for some observed irregularities in Mercury's orbit. Like volcanoes, it was named for the Roman god of fire, Vulcan (Hephaestos in Greek). The planet's existence was disproved when Einstein's General Theory of Relativity explained the orbital irregularities, but the idea of a Solar planet Vulcan persisted in science fiction for decades thereafter. Given that Roddenberry originally proposed that Spock might be from Mars, I sometimes wonder if the early TOS references to "Vulcanians" were meant to imply that they were from that Vulcan, the one in our Solar system. Maybe the Kellam De Forest research people let them know it didn't exist, so they changed it to an extrasolar planet.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Did anyone mention the aliens from Death's Angel yet? Oh boy.

 

[Kor]

I assume that "Denebian Slime Devil" is descriptive of some physical trait or group of traits that's particular to that species.

Kor

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Did anyone mention the aliens from Death's Angel yet? Oh boy.

A few of them. They didn't mention Ambassador Agnatha (the genus including lampreys and hagfish) from Jezero (it means "lake" in several Slavic languages). And while "Therin of Andor" mentioned Hotep, he didn't mention that Hotep came from Djoser (named after a Pharaoh), or that the name was contrived for the sake of a pun (when he introduces himself, he says, "I'm Hotep" ["Imhotep," another ancient Egyptian, possibly the architect of Djoser's step-pyramid], which is right up there with Roger Zelazny reputedly crafting Lords of Light around the Spoonerism, "Then the fit hit the Shan.")

I assume that "Denebian Slime Devil" is descriptive of some physical trait or group of traits that's particular to that species.

You can find a picture of one in the Starfleet Medical Reference (either the original fan-published edition or the slightly expanded Ballantine edition; I have both; the image from the book was canonized as an Okudagram that appeared in two episodes of DS9).

 

[Enterprise1701]

By god I hate what ENT did to introduce the Romulans by name. And to add insult to injury, a Vulcan who was most certainly not born or educated in Earth territory gives the nonsensical clarification of the pronunciation.

Curse you, writers.

 

[Extrocomp]

Same game, the Romulans name a species, derogatory with a Human language word (add insult to injury), Elachi, which means mushroom.

Where are you getting that from? I tried googling it, but all I could find is elaichi, an Indian spice derived from plant seeds, which is also known as cardamom.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And what episode/movie/novel/novella/short story?

 

[Christopher]

And what episode/movie/novel/novella/short story?

If you mean the Elachi, that's Star Trek Online's name for the aliens from ENT: "Silent Enemy." Which never made sense to me because they're, y'know, silent. So if it was coined by the Romulans, that would explain it.

 

[Avro Arrow]

The Violaceans, a violet or purple-skinned race from Star Trek Online.

That has to be the worst example of this type of thing in the whole thread, because not only did they come up with a name based on the English word for the colour of their skin, but also (to my eye anyway) it looks like it should be pronounced "Violations".

I've never played Star Trek Online. Are they supposed to be the purple people from "Journey to Babel"?

The really weird part of that episode is Hoshi mispronounces "Romulan" when translating what she just heard a Romulan say to her. Which implies something like this:

ROMULAN: Blarg blarg argle wort Romalin!
HOSHI: They say they've annexed this planet in the name of something called "the Romalin Star Empire."
T'POL: "Romulan." It's pronounced, "Romulan."
HOSHI: I'm pretty sure he said "Romalin," but okay.

Perhaps T'Pol was the Homer Simpson of her day.

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[Extrocomp]

I've never played Star Trek Online. Are they supposed to be the purple people from "Journey to Babel"?

Yes, they are. In the mission "Return to Babel" you travel back in time to the USS Enterprise during the events of "Journey to Babel", which is where the Violacean delegate appears. The word is never spoken out loud, but I imagine it to be pronounced "Veeolaseean".

In the same mission, the hooded aliens are called "Zambeans", which is hopefully not because one of them was played by a black guy.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Are they supposed to be the purple people from "Journey to Babel"?

Yes, they are.

No doubt they live in mortal fear of the species described in Sheb Wooley's greatest hit.