Sulu was named for the sea
- Thread starter T'Girl
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^ In all instances I like the canon names better than the fan ones. Hikaru sounds much better than Walter, and Nyota fits Uhura better than "Penda".
Now if only we'd find out what Lt. Kyle's real name is.
Now if only we'd find out what Lt. Kyle's real name is.
Penda is a much better name for Uhura when you realize that Nyota means 'Flowers' and Penda means 'Love'. Penda Uhura then means "Love of Freedom", while Nyota Uhura means "Flowers Freedom". Which do you think GR would want as a name for a character like her?
Now if only we'd find out what Lt. Kyle's real name is.
John Winston Kyle.
(Whenever he's been given a first name in the novels, they've used "John". An article in "The Best of Trek" suggested "Winston".)
"Nyota" = "star".
GR and NN were sought for approval for both "Penda" (at one of the early 70s conventions) and "Nyota" (see below).
I thought Nyota meant "star."
It does. Created with Nichelle Nichols' approval for the book, "Star Trek II Biographies" by William Rotsler.
Later explained as a crucial part of the plot in the novel "Uhura's Song" by Janet Kagan.
What's Swahili for "hailing frequencies open"?
^I tried Google Translate and got a variety of results. It didn't translate "hailing" at all, so I tried "greeting frequencies open," "salute frequencies open," and "salute frequencies are open" and got different results each time. What did you use?
^Whereas it had no problem translating "frequencies," plural. Weird.
I didn't bother with Google Translate, and went directly to four different English/Swahili online dictionaries, including the official one from Kenya. While 'star' may be one potential translation, all four agreed that the first translation was 'flowers'. I ask again, which name do you think GR would have wanted for his Kenyan communications officer, "Flowers(or Star) Freedom" or "Love (of) Freedom"?
The one that translated into "yes I'll get on the casting couch naked because I really want this part."
.
Since he called his American captain and main protagonist "Heel-holder Church of the river Tiber"... I'd say he could have gone either way.
Does that matter? If it can mean "star," that's good enough. William Rotsler wanted to give Uhura a first name that meant "Star." That's Nyota. And what's wrong with a word that means both star and flower? I think there's a rather lovely symbolism there.
First off, he never said she was Kenyan. The series bible says she was "born in the United States of Africa." The Making of Star Trek says she's "a citizen of the Bantu Nation of United Africa." It was the novels The Starless World and Uhura's Song that proposed Nairobi as her birthplace, or perhaps drew on something from fandom.
Second, I don't see how "Star of Freedom" is a bad name in the context of Star Trek. A star, figuratively, is a guiding light, an inspiration. What's more appropriate to Star Trek than using "star" to represent inspiration and hope? For that matter, "Flower of Freedom" works great too. "Flower" is the root of the word "flourish," and the growth and flourishing of freedom is hardly a negative image. The word "flower" can also mean the best or finest example of a group, like "the flower of our nation's youth." Really, these are great names symbolically. Sure, love of freedom is nice, but a bright light inspiring freedom, one who causes freedom to flourish, and the finest exemplar of freedom, all rolled into one -- isn't that even better?
Third, remember, Roddenberry was no linguist. He made up the name "Uhura" by taking the Swahili word uhuru and sticking a Latin feminine ending on it. If he was willing to give her an imaginary, linguistically chimerical surname like that, I really don't think he would've been as picky about her first name as you are.
For a while, my personal theory was Sulu's first name was Napoleon. But that would have been too close to a character from another show also then airing on NBC. This theory was sort of reinforced in "The Enemy Within", when day player Jim Goodwin mangled a line which came out sounding like "Still no word from Mr. Solo, sir."
In that case, surely he promised to make her a "star," not a "flower."
In that case, surely he promised to make her a "star," not a "flower."
Deflowered.
* An asterisk resembles both a star and a flower. And the star inside the command Starfleet insignia. The Sydney-based Star Trek Fan Club (1972-1992) was called Astrex after an asterisk ("little star").
As for GR and NN. Both were asked by the group of US convention fans wanting to use "Penda" in their fanfic, and both were asked by William Rotsler ("ST II Biographies") about the coining of "Nyota", explained as meaning "star". They said yes to both.
And of course there are flowers called asters because of their resemblance to stars. Plus starflowers, sunflowers, and flowers called sun star and Star-of-Bethlehem. I'm sure it's no coincidence that the same Swahili word is used for both flowers and stars.
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