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The "K" Sound in Captain

RaisedEyeBrow

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Newbie
Hello, everyone. I'm new to the forum and I have a question that I have wondered about for a long time, but I'm just getting around to a forum to ask it. And I read the OP in the General Trek Questions and Observations | The Trek BBS thread, and I hope this question/thread will have enough legs to it so that it won't be placed in that thread because personally, I think it's a pretty good question that I've never seen discussed before. ;)

But anyway, has anyone ever noticed that the majority of captains and first officers/second in command have a "K" sound like the word "captain" in their names? For example starting with TOS, we have Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. And even the first failed Star Trek series had Captain Pike and Mr. Spock. And following TOS with have STTNG where we have Captain Jean-Luc Picard and William Riker. But I observed something interesting in the next Star Trek series, STDS9 where we have Captain Sisko, but for the series' female first officer, Kira Nerys, the " "K" sound is in the character's first name. And yes, I know that Bajorans names are in reverse order compared to human names, but bear with me.

But in Star Trek's next series, Voyager, the Captain's name is Kathryn Janeway (where her first name has the "K" sound) and her first officer's name is Chakotay, which also has the "K" sound. However, I noticed something different in the next Star Trek series, Enterprise where we have Captain Jonathan Archer and second in command, Sub-Commander T'Pol. (And I think she was second in command because I was never really into that show and I really didn't watch too much so, I'm not sure if she was second in command.) Because this is the first Star Trek series where I noticed that the names of the captain and the second in command didn't have the "K" some like in the word "captain." And because of this, that answered a question in my mind as to whether or not the names with the "K" sound were intentional by Gene Rodenberry and other creators and producers of Star Trek or not. Therefore, I would say that this was only coincidental. Additionally, I want to mention that I have sometimes wondered if (and no offense to anyone) that may have been one of the reasons why this show was canceled and not as well received as other Star Trek series.:shrug:

But continuing, we have Discovery where the current captain and main character of the show (who is female) is named Michael Burnham where once again, the female lead character has the "K" sound in her first name. However, the second in commander, Mr. Saru's name doesn't follow this pattern. But I won't mention the Picard series since it has characters from STTNG.

But please share your thoughts and observations. :)
 
Wow...

I'm astonished.

Honestly....I really doubt it means anything beyond a weird coincidence. They never really gave that much shit about the names... They weren't exactly creative....
 
Beyond that those who wrote and produced the show may have appreciated a certain amount of alliteration / assonance in Captain Kirk, I doubt anything more than that was intentional.
 
Out of the nine TNG main characters four had a "k" sound, two of which were the CO/XO.
Out of ten DS9 main characters four had a "k" sound, two of which were the CO/XO.
Out of the ten VGR main characters an astonishing six to eight had a "k" sound (depending on how you count the ending of Neelix' name and Seven's birth name), two of which were the CO/XO, however out of the other four to six characters all but one had command ambitions/experiences (Neelix was captain of his ship in the pilot, Seven seemed to be kind of important in the war against species 8472, IIRC [although that seemed conceptually weird for the Borg, what whatever], Kim had the nightshift and the nightingale and the Doctor had the whole Emergency Command Hologram thingie going on.

What does this mean? Who knows, but I had fun looking at MA cast lists for ten minutes!
 
But anyway, has anyone ever noticed that the majority of captains and first officers/second in command have a "K" sound like the word "captain" in their names? For example starting with TOS, we have Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. :)

Hi, this is something that's crossed my mind in the past, mostly about TOS though....Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Christine, Chekov, and Scotty. The one connection that makes sense to me is that Roddenberry was part Jewish, and Shatner, Nimoy, Koenig, Barrett as well as Gene Coon and many of the TOS writers were also Jews. The Jewish language seems to feature that consonant rather strongly. I could be totally wrong, it's just an impression.
 
It's common to perceive names with K sounds in them as being strong or forceful. There are plenty of characters throughout fiction, far beyond Trek, that have K sounds in their names -- Clark Kent, Carter Hall, Kraven the Hunter, Kang the Conqueror, "Killer" Kane, Charles Foster Kane, Kwai Chang Caine, Conan, Kull, Katara, Sokka, Korra, Luke and Anakin Skywalker, Chewbacca, Tarkin, Ahsoka, Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. Not to mention all the alien/monster races with K names -- Morlocks, Daleks, Klingons, Kree, Skrull, Kzinti, Wookiees, Krill, etc.

(Ooh, Greg beat me to it by seconds.)
 
I've read in the past that the names were indeed purposefully chosen for their "strong" sound. I do not know if that was the opinion of the authors or if that was a stated reason given by the show creators, however.

See also all of Stan Lee's characters who have repeated letters in their first and last names: Peter Parker, Reed Richards, etc.
 
See also all of Stan Lee's characters who have repeated letters in their first and last names: Peter Parker, Reed Richards, etc.

Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Billy Batson predate them by decades. Also Charlie Chan, Dan Dare, King Kong, Sam Spade, Tiny Tim, Wallace Wimple, etc.


Kenneth Johnson: "I'm gonna change Bruce Banner to David Banner in my Hulk show since alliterative names are silly."

Also Kenneth Johnson: "The stars of my Hulk pilot will be Bill Bixby and Susan Sullivan."
 
Wow...

I'm astonished.

Honestly....I really doubt it means anything beyond a weird coincidence. They never really gave that much shit about the names... They weren't exactly creative....

Thank you for your reply, however, I'm not sure how you can say they weren't exactly creative with one of the most creative television shows in sci-fi history. :) Also, I agree with you that it was apparently a weird coincidence since Archer and T'Pol were the first Star Trek series names that didn't follow that pattern. Although, it seemed as with Archer, they perhaps subconsciously tried. ;)
 
Beyond that those who wrote and produced the show may have appreciated a certain amount of alliteration / assonance in Captain Kirk, I doubt anything more than that was intentional.

You're probably right. Kind of like Lois Lane and Lex Luthor, which could be alliteration of the Kryptonian "El" family name.
 
Out of the nine TNG main characters four had a "k" sound, two of which were the CO/XO.
Out of ten DS9 main characters four had a "k" sound, two of which were the CO/XO.
Out of the ten VGR main characters an astonishing six to eight had a "k" sound (depending on how you count the ending of Neelix' name and Seven's birth name), two of which were the CO/XO, however out of the other four to six characters all but one had command ambitions/experiences (Neelix was captain of his ship in the pilot, Seven seemed to be kind of important in the war against species 8472, IIRC [although that seemed conceptually weird for the Borg, what whatever], Kim had the nightshift and the nightingale and the Doctor had the whole Emergency Command Hologram thingie going on.

What does this mean? Who knows, but I had fun looking at MA cast lists for ten minutes!

Well, alrighty then. :)
 
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