Spock's last name

Or maybe it's sort of a tradition. The last name not being meant to call someone but to put on official documents only.

 

It's ZVBXRPL. If you want to know how to say it, the pronunciation guide costs one quatloo. (That's the second time today I've used that reference for something Star Trek-related.)

It's what's always been assumed as far as I know, certainly in Ishmael. The Officer's Manual is unclear about the Xtmpr... etc. name, but it does say the "Sareku" patronymic comes first.

Not necessarily. Maybe they're both true -- that Vulcans generally go by a single personal name, with their family names being more just for formal records and such, but that of Spock's family also happens to be difficult to pronounce.

Or maybe Vulcan family names are handed down from ancient times and preserved unchanged in Old High Vulcan or whatever out of tradition, while the rest of the language has evolved and been modernized. So the family names would use distinctly different phonetics from the given names, and might be much more complicated.

 

Or maybe pronouncing Vulcan last names is their equivalent to our old sobriety test.

 

OMG you're right! I thought you were joking at first but it turns out Vulcans are indeed an offshoot of the Welsh people. Quoting Memory Alpha:

"The Vulcan race began as a group of Welsh revolutionaries who refused to accept the Welsh philosopher Bertrand Russell's teachings of the revolt against idealism. At some point in their shared history, this group left the planet of Earth, eventually settling on the planet Vulcan".

 

The Vulcans were supposedly an off-shoot of Sargon's people weren't they? Don't think they were Welsh me boyo!
JB
(How green was my Plomik soup...)

 

I always thought Vulcans only had one name, and I have forgotten or ignored all evidence to the contrary.

 

Maybe instead of family names as a unique identifier, they go by lineage like (as seen in ST3) Spock son of Sarek, Son of ...., son of ... etc.. If there is more than one 'Spock son of Sarek' they go up the ladder to the next level to look for a different name to uniquely identify them. Same Idea with the Klingons, Worf son of Mogh, Mogh son of .... Etc..

 

English has some non-intuitive pronunciations, too. Could someone please pass the Worcestershire sauce?

Kor

 

"The idea that vulcan last names are hard to say is kinda silly"

But it's fun! Isn't it now kind of a trope to play the "Name: unpronouncable" card with aliens? It got its start in the 70s with Trek back-story books.

 

Or "Spock, you son-of-a ... ." McCoy

 

Unless the Welsh are an offshoot of Sargon's people.
Sargon did speculate that humans might be an off shoot aswell.

 

Ah, I see he is from the Welsh region of Vulcan.

 

What's a vowel? Oh yeah, one of your human letters.

 

For more on Spock's other name, whether Xtmprszntwlfd or S'chn T'gai read this Memory Beta page.

Turns out it wasn't Geoffrey Mandel and Doug Drexler that came up with Xtmprszntwlfd but Dorothy Fontana herself!

 

How many last names does he have then?

 

Both are correct. S'chn T'gai is of course, his Patrilineal clan name, which goes back to the semi-legendary S'chn. Xtmprszntwlfd follows Matrilineal ancestry and as astute scholars of Vulcan linguistics can attest, one can easily point out the social status and regional origin of each ancestor based on the structure of of the name. The inclusion Amanda Grayson's name has been known to throw off less experienced linguists.

 

Had another thought on this -- maybe Vulcan given names are hard to pronounce too, but they simplify them when speaking English. But simplifying the family name is considered inappropriate somehow.

Although that wouldn't really work, because we've heard Vulcans call each other by name when speaking Vulcan -- for instance, the Kolinahr priestess addressing Spock in TMP. Then again, she did pronounce it kinda like "Shpohkh."

 

But Anne Mulhall stated that human life evolved on earth independently which put Sargon's feathers in his mouth didn't it!
JB

 

Amanda 'Grayson' was added in books too wasn't it? I don't think I remembered her surname used in the episode or the film in which she appeared!
JB