Is M’Benga’s first name the only thing from Vanguard that Strange New Worlds contradicts?
- Thread starter OCD Geek
- Start date
Wasn't there a whole running thread about how M'Benga wanted to serve on a starship because he'd never done so before?
If you want to make Vanguard fit with SNW, it might just be easier to assume Joseph and Jabilo are two different characters.
If you want to make Vanguard fit with SNW, it might just be easier to assume Joseph and Jabilo are two different characters.
Geoffrey M'Benga was used in TOS novel, "The IDIC Epidemic". 
And The Tears of Eridanus called him Jabilo Geoffrey M'Benga. Personally, I'm not a fan of the practice of combining two different given names in order to reconcile a contradiction because it doesn't really work. People who have two given names either go by their first name or their middle name, not both. So, it doesn't make sense for everyone to call him Geoff in one novel, while everyone calls him Jabilo in another.Geoffrey M'Benga was used in TOS novel, "The IDIC Epidemic".
Since both Jabilo and Geoffrey start with the same sound, Geoffrey was probably his “Anglicized” name, like when Yiani becomes John, or Mohammad becomes Moe, or Etienne becomes Stephen.
In which case it is quite common for people to answer to different names according to the situation.
In which case it is quite common for people to answer to different names according to the situation.
I find it hard to believe that people centuries in the future would still be so ethnocentric as to need people to Anglicize their names. It's one thing if someone's name is so phonetically different that it's hard for an English speaker to pronounce, like a lot of Chinese names (although I think it's more polite to make the effort to learn how to say someone's name than to demand that they change it for your convenience), but "Jabilo" is hardly difficult to pronounce. I mean, internet sources disagree over whether it's "JAB-uh-low" or "juh-BEE-low," but neither of those is difficult in itself; once you hear him say it, you'd know it.
I agree, although as a teacher in schools since 1977, it was (and is) very commonplace for students to use names that are nothing like their actual names. Often we didn't know (and they often didn't know) unless we happened to see their birth certificate of passport. We have also had students who have changed their name at school without their parents knowing.
Spellings of names often happened at the immigration borders. I have taught cousins with different surname spellings and pronunciations. Even my own surname, McLean, has many disputed spellings, meanings and pronunciations, for a whole slew of reasons. My cousin, who was a court barrister, eventually changed his pronunciation because the judges always said it incorrectly. He reckoned it was easier than to keep correcting them. I only found out recently that this happened decades ago. So a whole sector of my extended family now uses that pronunciation instead (ie. said "Mc Lane" vs "Mc Lean").
Same with pronunciations. Just a few years ago, we had a child leaving Year 6 and his mother made a speech. In it she incidentally mentioned how the surname was actually pronounced. They had never corrected us, even though about five of their kids had gone through the school.
I am guessing that the Universal Translator may muddy names even more into the 23rd century.
Yes, I know it was used there, but they were justifying the previous use of Geoffrey. When it was his first name in "The IDIC Epidemic".
He could have changed it for any number of reasons. Some people change their names to leave behind a traumatic past, to honor someone they care about, because of marriage, adoption, taking on a stage or professional name, to avoid confusion with a colleague's name, because the old one matches that of a notorious person from history you'd rather not be associated with, etc.
Indeed. My friend, whom I always knew as Angela, changed her name to Diana, by deed poll, after several years of us knowing her. We had to get used to it because she would glare at us if we got it wrong. Then I learned that she had previously been Agnes, which was her Anglicised name during school (from her original, less-pronouncible, Hungarian name.) She had also officially changed her surname three times.
If that's their own choice, fine. That's my whole point, that you should call people what they want to be called. If it's hard for you to pronounce, do the work and learn it, instead of insisting they change themselves for your convenience.
Yeah, I was going to say -- I suppose there could be cases where, for example, an Asian person in an Anglophone country might choose to adopt a Western nickname because they can't stand how badly the English-speakers struggle to pronounce their real name. Then it's still their own choice.
My best friend in college, though she was of Appalachian heritage, was named Xuân (Vietnamese for "spring") by her mother, who taught English to Vietnamese immigrants. In her childhood, her mother remarried a domineering, intolerant man who legally changed Xuân's name to Dawn, which was the name she was going by when I met her. Later in that same school year, she asserted her independence and filed the paperwork to go back legally to her real first name, and she wrote out a message about her name change and how to pronounce it on the chalkboard of the lounge where we hung out. She pronounced it "tsun" with the vowel sound of "book," though Google Translate asserts it's actually more like "tswan," so maybe she was simplifying a bit. I told her I would find it an easy adjustment to make, since after all, "Dawn is when the Xuân comes up." Not just a pun, but a helpful mnemonic as I retrained myself.
All the more reason I despise the tendency to believe that people in the future use the UT by default instead of making the effort to learn other languages.
I forgot to mention someone might change their name if their original name sounds too similar to an embarrassing or silly word in another language that they frequently use, English or otherwise.
Perhaps the UT in the 23d century is better at American/English names than other languages?
It's worth pointing out that Tears of Eridanus is set in an alternative timeline. So while his name is "Jabilo Geoffrey" there, it implies nothing at all about his name in any other stories. Perhaps in the "original novelverse" his parents made a slightly different choice and went with "Geoffrey Jabilo"!
(And in the canon timeline, Joseph. Clearly they had a thing for names with a J sound.)
(And in the canon timeline, Joseph. Clearly they had a thing for names with a J sound.)
Similar threads
