M'aking up alien N'ames

[Gaith]

M'aking up alien N'ames: if in doubt, stick an apostrophe in th'ere.

I always wanted to see the following dialog:

La Forge: Captain, we are approaching the planet... Joebob.

Picard: Joebob?!

Riker: Guess they can't all be as badass-sounding as "Verillium IV"...

 

[The Wormhole]

Verillium IV has actually a cool sounding name for a planet.

 

[hyzmarca]

Given that alien names would be based on even more exotic phonetics, it makes perfect sense that they'd require apostrophes and the like when transliterated.

Not really. T'Pol could have been rendered Tipoll. They don't require them, but they may prefer them.

If it were spelled like that then everyone would call her Tea-pole.

 

[Starbreaker]

Oh my god... not this again. I hate alien names that are K'Ch'Ckt'Fi'Na'Ga'Do or whatever. There's nothing that anyone can say to defend them.

 

[Trent Roman]

Yeah, a story I was reading recently had characters going by Emzara (daughter of Rake'el), Sedeqetelebab, Ne'elatama'uk, and 'Adataneses. Can you believe that?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Starbreaker]

My last name is Volz... anyone wanna tell me how to pronounce that or where I could add a good apostrophe?

 

[Deckerd]

Yeah, a story I was reading recently had characters going by Emzara (daughter of Rake'el), Sedeqetelebab, Ne'elatama'uk, and 'Adataneses. Can you believe that?

That's hilarious. Thanks.

I'm not sure I would have the intestinal fortitude to continue reading it. Of course OT names are English approximations.

 

[T'Girl]

I never really have been sure if T'Pol was Tah Pole, or Tuh Pole. It seems to be pronounced both ways on the series. Anyone know which way is proper?

La Forge: Captain, we are approaching the planet... Joebob.

When my brother was first in Afghanistan he was deployed around Jalalabad, which I didn't know from his letters because apparently the grunts simply called it "Jello Bob."

 

[Brian]

I never really have been sure if T'Pol was Tah Pole, or Tuh Pole. It seems to be pronounced both ways on the series. Anyone know which way is proper?

Hmmm.. Without looking back at the DVDs, I have to say I don't recall that they said "pole" at all. It was always "pahl" in my mind. Tuh Pahl.

 

[Checkmate]

I don't mind it. Sure, it's odd when you see it spelled out, but how often is that other than in the credits?

Personally, I was tickled when I learned of the Raxacoricofallapatorians from Dr. Who. The ease in which the Doctor could say it but how practically everyone else faltered was great. Same thing goes with the Judoon language; it's just fun listening to the Doctor spout it off.

 

[DevilEyes]

I was amused when I saw the DS9 episode "Necessary Evil" in which the spelling of a Bajoran name is a somewhat important plot point. It's the only time a Bajoran name has ever had an apostrophe. Now that's just silly.

What is? That an entire planet of billions of people does not have similar names, or that some other Bajoran out of those billions of people may have a very different name from the, what, 20 or so Bajorans we had met up to that point?

Anyway, I'm reminded of the Making of Star Trek book by ... um Whitfield and Roddenberry, maybe?

There is a full page of potential Vulcan names. They had decided that the rules for all Vulcan names were 1) they were all 5 letters lock, 2) they all started with S, and ended with K, and 3) most of them had p as the second letter ... SPxxK. And they went through various combinations including Spook and Spunk.

Now that is just silly.

That's like saying, since my name is Ivana, every human female on Earth must have a 5-letter name that starts in I and ends in A.

Anyway, I'm reminded of the Making of Star Trek book by ... um Whitfield and Roddenberry, maybe?

There is a full page of potential Vulcan names. They had decided that the rules for all Vulcan names were 1) they were all 5 letters lock, 2) they all started with S, and ended with K, and 3) most of them had p as the second letter ... SPxxK. And they went through various combinations including Spook and Spunk.

That memo was intended as a joke. But you knew that, didn't you?
.

And it's a good joke, because that's exactly how they seemed to be making up Vulcan names during TOS. There was some 'variety' later on in VOY time when they switched from "names in T" for women and "names in S" for men to the other way round. Then ENT added some "V"s.

 

[DevilEyes]

Yeah, a story I was reading recently had characters going by Emzara (daughter of Rake'el), Sedeqetelebab, Ne'elatama'uk, and 'Adataneses. Can you believe that?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

Well, you certainly can't accuse Trek of having too exotic-sounding alien names. Many of them are just existing human given or family names (Jadzia, Kira, Nerys, Elim, Iliana, Kotan) or other words (Quark, Dukat).

 

[Deckerd]

I think you mean DS9, rather than Trek as a whole.

 

[DevilEyes]

I think you mean DS9, rather than Trek as a whole.

Those were just the first that came to my mind. I could have mentioned Kang, or Troi, or Ilia, or Tarah...

 

[Michael]

There is a full page of potential Vulcan names. They had decided that the rules for all Vulcan names were 1) they were all 5 letters lock, 2) they all started with S, and ended with K, and 3) most of them had p as the second letter ... SPxxK. And they went through various combinations including Spook and Spunk.

Now that is just silly.

That's like saying, since my name is Ivana, every human female on Earth must have a 5-letter name that starts in I and ends in A.

But then again, from a real-world/television/production point of view it's not that bad an idea to give a fictional race similar sounding/looking names — however unrealistic that might be from an in-universe standpoint. Because for the viewer that makes them easier to recognize and supports the notion that it is one coherent culture. Granted, more variety is nice (I'm absolutely in favor of giving Vulcans names starting with letters other than S, T or V), but the idea to develop some kind of pattern and make alien names sound like they orginate from one place is not that disadvantageous. At least not to me.

 

[Zameaze]

But...but...but all of this argument is based on the misconception that the alien names are made up. They are not. For instance, T'Pol is actually J'lene Bl'lock's middle name!

I believe a lot of this is just apostrophe envy. Am I right?

 

[Kegg]

Well, you certainly can't accuse Trek of having too exotic-sounding alien names. Many of them are just existing human given or family names (Jadzia, Kira, Nerys, Elim, Iliana, Kotan) or other words (Quark, Dukat).

Mostly this is because when you try to invent something that sounds like a name, chances are it already exists as a word (there are only so many permutations of four or five letters.)

The question would then be, how many of those are intentional? Quark, certainly. Jadzia, I'd be more dubious.

 

[Fist McStrongpunch]

I was amused when I saw the DS9 episode "Necessary Evil" in which the spelling of a Bajoran name is a somewhat important plot point. It's the only time a Bajoran name has ever had an apostrophe. Now that's just silly.

What is? That an entire planet of billions of people does not have similar names, or that some other Bajoran out of those billions of people may have a very different name from the, what, 20 or so Bajorans we had met up to that point?

No, that the only time ever that the plot demands a character spell a Bajoran name (and as I recall, recognize it as Bajoran) is also the only time that one had an apostrophe.

Also, the way the scene was played was ridiculous. Here's an approximation:

Rom: There was a "C".
Odo:What else?
Rom: An "H"
Odo: And?
Rom: There was a mark.
Odo: An apostrophe, yes.
Rom: Chess'o!

 

[Orintho]

If in doubt, stick an apostrophe in th'ere.

This is still better than George Lucas's approach of using common words to become character names because they fit the character attribute. Take Darth Sideous - I guess he was called that because he is evil and INSIDIOUS. Bwahahahaha! (And James 'Unobtanium' Cameron is guilty of this as well.)

 

[Nardpuncher]

I accept one apostrophe, though I got sick of them a long time ago. (and since it's my opinion I DON'T CARE about real-wrold uses of apostrophes! I'm well aware from living on this planet that we already use them! Sheesh!)
I never liked using more than one as it makes the name hard to verbalize in my head as I read, if you know what I mean.