Non-Canon Names for Canon Characters - The Complete List

[Avro Arrow]

I just noticed that I can no longer edit my list to add new entries since the TrekBBS update. My last post from 2023 still has an edit button, but the list posts from 2021 don't. Will this be fixed in the future?

So I don't know about "fixed", since this was done intentionally, with the thought being that we should no longer allow indefinite editing, like we did previously. It was originally only set at 3 days, but has now been extended due to member feedback. I don't think the timeframe is entirely finalized, and is still under discussion.

Here's the link to the thread in QSF, if you're interested:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/can-we-not-edit-for-as-long-now.317002/

 

[Adventerprise]

Have there been any additions to the character list in recent Treklit since we last added any?

 

[Airin]

Impressive list!

As addition, McCoy's ex-wife was called Honey in the "Planet of Judgment" novel.

 

[Extrocomp]

Have there been any additions to the character list in recent Treklit since we last added any?

Lost to Eternity had plenty of new names. Gillian Taylor now has a middle name. Mary Christine and Mary Michelle are the two nuns who were part of the tour group at the Cetacean Institute. Mildred Coates is the old woman who was cured of kidney failure. Ben McIntyre and Javier Valdez are the two garbagemen who were spooked by the HMS Bounty's arrival. The Voyage Home novelization just called them Ben and Javy.

Lost to Eternity also reaffirmed Khod as the name of the Klingon captain from Elaan of Troyius and Harpo as the name of George and Gracie's whale calf. And Naomi is now in the lead as Lieutenant Rahda's most often used first name.

Impressive list!

As addition, McCoy's ex-wife was called Honey in the "Planet of Judgment" novel.

Thanks.

 

[Adventerprise]

Boy, she has a lot of names...

Jocelyn Treadway

Jocelyn Treadway (neé Jocelyn Abigail Darnell) was a female Human in the 23rd century. She was born on March 11, 2227 in Georgia, North America on planet Earth, not long after the birth of Leonard McCoy and not long before that of Clay Treadway. After Treadway's birth, the Darnells and Treadways...

memory-beta.fandom.com

Edit:Or would that be aliases?

 

[Ogrebear]

This is such useful work for story writers or simply the curious.

Thank you.

 

[Enterprise1701]

In what one might consider a great exercise in originality or a stunning gap in consulting Memory Alpha and Memory Beta, Star Trek: Lower Decks #11 named George and Gracie's calf as Ronald, different from Harpo (from the 1999 anthology short story "The Hero of My Life" and the 2024 novel Lost to Eternity) or Jessie (from the 1987 FASA RPG module "The Hottest Blood of All").

 

[Extrocomp]

Thanks. IDW sometimes uses the same names as the novels like Kahless, son of Kanjis or Martok, son of Urthog, but other times uses completely different ones like Revo for Sela's father or Sarah for Sisko's daughter.

 

[Christopher]

It has never been a requirement or expectation for Trek tie-ins from one publisher to use any names or ideas from another publisher's tie-ins. This isn't Star Wars where there's a central office riding herd on all the tie-ins to make them consistent with each other. Trek tie-ins only have to be consistent with screen canon.

Anyway, "Ronald" makes sense, because George Burns & Gracie Allen's best-known son was named Ronnie. Harpo Marx was from the same generation of comedians as George Burns, but it's kind of an indirect allusion. And I can't think what the name Jessie might be based on, if anything.

 

[Enterprise1701]

Thanks. IDW sometimes uses the same names as the novels like Kahless, son of Kanjis or Martok, son of Urthog, but other times uses completely different ones like Revo or Sarah for Sisko's daughter.

I hate the name "Sarah Sisko" for Benjamin and Kasidy's child so much especially because it's another entry in the long list of glaring offenses by the writers who did not research their source material, namely the stupid Benjamin Sisko's egg donor was a sex slave for the Prophets storyline from DS9 season 7.

 

[Adventerprise]

And I can't think what the name Jessie might be based on, if anything.

Six years too early to be a feminine form for the hero kid from Free Willy. (RPG from '87, movie from '93) Darn.

 

[Cap'n Calhoun]

It has never been a requirement or expectation for Trek tie-ins from one publisher to use any names or ideas from another publisher's tie-ins

In fact, it's been occasionally stated that they've been asked not to reference other tie-ins.

This has gone back and forth a lot: During the first DC Comics run on Star Trek cross-pollination with the novels happened somewhat frequently; during the second run it seemed like it was effectively forbidden, at least early on. (I'm basing this partially on the comments that Bob Greenberger and other editors made on the letters pages.)

 

[Christopher]

In fact, it's been occasionally stated that they've been asked not to reference other tie-ins.

Only for a brief time long ago, when Richard Arnold was in charge of approvals. It was an exception, not a rule. At no time in my own roughly two-decade career as a Trek author have I ever been told I couldn't reference other tie-ins.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Only for a brief time long ago, when Richard Arnold was in charge of approvals.

Precisely. And a Novelverse had started to develop before Arnold's "reign of terror," with authors bouncing each other's characters back and forth. If not for Arnold, it might have developed as fully as the more familiar Novelverse of today (the one that was heavily pruned with the advent of streaming series, but not completely obliterated).

 

[Christopher]

Precisely. And a Novelverse had started to develop before Arnold's "reign of terror," with authors bouncing each other's characters back and forth. If not for Arnold, it might have developed as fully as the more familiar Novelverse of today (the one that was heavily pruned with the advent of streaming series, but not completely obliterated).

To an extent, maybe, but that one was more piecemeal and occasional than the post-2000 novelverse. It started out as just individual authors reusing characters and continuity in their own successive books, and then other authors started referencing Diane Duane's Romulans and John M. Ford's Klingons, and it sort of grew loosely from there, usually just as passing references here and there (and many of the books that technically count as part of the "'80s continuity" are only linked to it by being referenced in Time for Yesterday). And the books that got retroactively connected that way often had contradictions between them, because it wasn't really planned. And there were still plenty of novels that didn't tie in or contradicted the others (e.g. Pawns and Symbols, which came out after The Final Reflection but presented an incompatible take on Klingon society).

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Quite. But thanks to Arnold, we never did get to see if it would develop into anything more. Although the fact that the post-2000 Novelverse became so extensive and so internally consistent (and let's face it, even single-author canons have continuity issues, e.g., Holmes, Oz, Humanx Commonwealth . . .) suggests that given time, the pre-Arnold Novelverse might have evolved into something similar.

 

[Christopher]

Quite. But thanks to Arnold, we never did get to see if it would develop into anything more. Although the fact that the post-2000 Novelverse became so extensive and so internally consistent (and let's face it, even single-author canons have continuity issues, e.g., Holmes, Oz, Humanx Commonwealth . . .) suggests that given time, the pre-Arnold Novelverse might have evolved into something similar.

I'm not so sure. You're forgetting that the reason it was possible to develop an interconnected novel continuity of sorts in the mid-'80s was the same reason it was possible to do one in the 2000s -- because the series the books were based on was mostly no longer in production, so there was little risk of the books being contradicted. While Arnold's approach to the tie-ins was certainly heavy-handed, the main reason the '80s novel continuity couldn't continue was because TNG itself depicted Klingons, Romulans, Federation history, etc. in a way that ignored the novels. The novel continuity was shut down because the new canon went a different way, the same reason the modern Novelverse was ended, the same reason the Star Wars Expanded Universe was ended. It's illogical to expect it could've gone any differently, Arnold or no Arnold.