Didn't you people ever see WoK and SFS?!

[Admiral2]

(This is a rant. Please take it for what it is.)

Okay, it happened again, and one of my veins officially popped!

I'm reading a fanfic here and yet another Vulcan female character is introduced that has yet another stupid name that starts with a stupid T and a stupid ', and I'm just sick of it!

Have you people never watched the Trek movies Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock and Undiscovered Country? Do you know what those movies have in common? They feature Vulcan females. Do you know what their names were? Saavik and Valeris! Repeat: SAAVIK AND VALERIS, two Vulcan female names that don't start with friggin' T and friggin' apostrophe!

Could we, as fellow fanfiction writers all, finally show some more imagination than just renaming T'Pau and T'pring when coming up with Vulcan female characters? (You know, more imagination than B&B showed when naming T'Pol?)

(end of rant. we now return you to your regularly scheduled forum.)

 

[TheLoneRedshirt]

You're certainly entitled to your opinion/rant. However, I found Valeris to be one of the weakest, most unbelievable characters in any of the ST movies. In fact, I find most of the later ST Kirk/Spock movies to be pretty bad - certainly nothing I care to emulate for my fanfic stories. If you find the T' so offensive, I suggest you refrain from reading any of my stories for they might strike you blind.

Perhaps we should also avoid having Vulcan males with names beginning with an "S." There was Tuvok, of course. How about "Krock?"

 

[DavidFalkayn]

Maybe I should call my next Vulcan female character Fred?

Seriously, my Vulcan female characters don't care what you call them just so long as you don't call them late for dinner.

 

[CeJay]

That made me laugh. Not in a bad way. It was quite funny, perhaps because it is true.

The thing about alien charater names in Trek fan fiction is though, that they are more often than not variations of already established names. Obviously in order to maintain some form on continuity with names. In reality it makes very little sense of course when one considers the extreme variety of names that exist on all of Earth.

I think it is quite hard to be original with alien character names because one way or another it's already been thought of. I say stick to whatever name you want and save your creative muscle for a good story.

 

[Mistral]

I'm calling my next Vulcan male Guido and next female, Crap. There, that's different.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

I think T'Leris would have been a better name for Valeris

 

[Admiral2]

TLR: Too late. I'm typing on a Braille keyboard at this moment.

DavidFalkayn: Only if her best friend is Cordy and her captain is Angel.

CeJay: Isaac Asimov had a perfect formula for coming up with original names: "I take normal names, and misspell them." This process may easily be applied to alien names in Trek, so it shouldn't be that hard to come up with names that aren't T'This, T'That and T'Other.

Mistral: It's an improvement...

EliyahuQeoni: Okay, see...you're not even trying...

 

[TheLoneRedshirt]

Admiral2, I guess you're not going to like my two new Vulcan characters - the sisters, T'Bag and T'Bird.

My take is that the T' is some sort of honorific. In several Trek novels, the explanation for the S names for Vulcan males is that it's an homage to Surak. Maybe there was a famous lady Vulcan (T'Rex, anyone?) which explains the T' prefix.

Or not.

Personally, I think Valeris sounds like a mid 1970's Chrysler.

Future complaints should be referred to my Vulcan agent, T'Doff.

 

[Admiral2]

Admiral2, I guess you're not going to like my two new Vulcan characters - the sisters, T'Bag and T'Bird.

I've heard of them. Don't the have a seamstress named T'Shirt and a financial planner named T'Bill?

My take is that the T' is some sort of honorific. In several Trek novels, the explanation for the S names for Vulcan males is that it's an homage to Surak. Maybe there was a famous lady Vulcan (T'Rex, anyone?) which explains the T' prefix.

Explanations lke this tend to be excuses for canon writers' lack of imagination. I don't buy it.

Or not.

See, you don't trust it either.

Personally, I think Valeris sounds like a mid 1970's Chrysler.

Jeez, I didn't say you had to name your next character after Valeris. I just want people to stop using T'Whatever and I offered two canon examples of other names.

Future complaints should be referred to my Vulcan agent, T'Doff.

I have his number.

 

[Mistral]

Using Asimov's theory and certain noticeable trends amongst Vulcan names I came up with B'il, M'rk, and B'obo for men(although M'rk is clearly Klingon in origin) and S'Allee, B'Uffee and M'Uffee for females.

(This reminds me of the "Spook, Spuck..." Gene Coon memo that was quoted in Gerrold's Making of Star Trek....)

 

[TheLoneRedshirt]

I came up with B'il, M'rk, and B'obo . . .

B'obo?

*Shudder!*

Clowns . . . I hate clowns.

Vulcan clowns . . .

< curls into the fetal position, whimpering quietly >

 

[McCovey Cove]

You forgot Doctor Selar.

But I tend to subscribe to the notion that those with the T' prefix are either betrothed (see: The Vulcan Academy Murders by Jean Lorrah or The Eyes of the Beholders by A. C. Crispin), and those without are not betrothed. In my Misadventures of January McKenna, I detail that a little bit when my Vulcan female character T'Sten breaks off her relationship and simply goes by Sten.

-- ZC

 

[Mistral]

*Sighs* Always so practical-and just when we were having fun.

 

[captcalhoun]

Valeris' name is revealed to be Klingon in origin in the TUC novelisation and Saavik is supposedly half-Romulan so...

your theory.

SAM

careening, burning mess...

 

[RevdKathy]

I'm writing a whole novella biography on the Life of T'Bitch. (not)

 

[Dulak]

Guilty as charged.

Now I feel bad about my cookie cutter T'Noor.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=34305&highlight=shepard

And here I thought I was just using convention as a way of maintaining some continuity for familiarities sake...which is why, it seems to me, fan fic gets written in the first place.

Oh well,

I was planning another installment to my unimaginative story... But now I'm worried about what other things I did w/o imagination.

Dulak

 

[Starkers]

It is tricky coming up with names for people from those big races. The last thing you want is for someone to say "That doesn't sound like a Vulcan/Klingon/Romulan name" The main problem with the T' prefix is that there are only so many names you can come up! Same with Vuclan male names that have to start with an S!

Thank God for Vaurik and Taurik eh?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Valeris' name is revealed to be Klingon in origin in the TUC novelisation

Plus, it's only one character removed from Valkris, who *was* a Klingon (ST III).

 

[Admiral2]

Valeris' name is revealed to be Klingon in origin in the TUC novelisation

Plus, it's only one character removed from Valkris, who *was* a Klingon (ST III).

Oh please...

The novelizations and other Trek books are full of such extraneous crap. That's why I gave up reading them. You want to go by them, fine.

I'm going by THE MOVIES, and in THE MOVIES, Saavik and Valeris are VULCANS and there is nothing in THE MOVIES to suggest that they or their names are anything else but VULCAN!

(Jeezus H! Now we gotta have the friggin' "Are the books canon?" debate...)

 

[McCovey Cove]

Oh please...

The novelizations and other Trek books are full of such extraneous crap. That's why I gave up reading them. You want to go by them, fine.

Well, I don't think the books are canon, but they do provide some interesting conjecture. However, the movie (and the two-parter episode) novelizations are almost always based on the first/second drafts of the screenplays written for the movies. It's how Vonda got the notion of Peter Preston being Scotty's nephew, which ended up being cut from the film. And the nephew angle is considered to be canon, now.

There's a /lot/ of stuff that ends up on the cutting room floor that, so I wouldn't go dismissing the novelizations so quickly.

-- ZC