Non-"Standard" Alien Race Names

[TGTheodore]

Seems the majority of mainstream races throughout Star Trekdom have ended in "-ian" or "-an" with the plural ending in "s".

As writers (and readers), what are some of the more unique alien race names you've noticed?

I think there was once a race that ended in "-uu", wasn't there?

Anyway, what are some of your favorites?

--Ted

 

[Nerroth]

Some of the 'off-camera' SFU species have distinct enough names - such as the Mynieni (Federation members), the Veltressai and Korlivilar (two of the co-founder species of the ISC), the Vudar (a subject people of the Klingon Empire... kind of), the Eneen, Yrol and Uthiki (three Magellanic species), the Wallimi, Tazol, Probr, Trobrin, Worb (various species from the Omega Octant) and so forth.


I like the Iridani, Baduvai, and a few of the above ones, personally.

 

[captcalhoun]

Caeliar, Tezwa and Vadwuaar don't end -ian or -an...

oh, wait aren't they Tezwans in plural?

Xindi. Vorta. Jem'hadar. Klingons. Kinshaya. Kreel.

 

[Timo]

It might be the result of a reality where most folks refer to themselves as "the people" or "humans" and their planet as "Earth" or "Dirt" or "Ground" or "Home". The Universal Translator then does the practical thing and invents a unique name for the species, its homeworld, its language and so forth, typically using as basis the human name for the local star. Some species such as Klingons are more innovative, though, and do the work themselves, leaving the UT jobless.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[LightningStorm]

Nobody's mentioned Ferengi yet. You guys are slipping.

I like that one because it's like "deer" and "sheep" where it's both plural and singular.

 

[David Mack]

Caeliar, Tezwa and Vadwuaar don't end -ian or -an...

oh, wait aren't they Tezwans in plural?

Actually, the peoples of Tezwa, in addition to calling themselves Tezwans, refer to their ethnic identities as either Trinae or Elininae.

Also, from my SCE novella "Small World," lets not forget the Koas — a word that is usable as a singular or plural noun, or as an adjective. This was a pattern that I found useful, so I recycled it for the Caeliar.

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

Lest we turn our backs on the Breen...

It seems clear that some species names are simply assigned to them by humans, rather than being the original names created by the species itself. There are either lots of sound-alike species names that are, coincidentally, identical to human mythology/astronomical names (e.g., Vulcans/Vulcan, Romulans/Romulus, Rigellians/Rigel)...or else, we're just giving them convienient human-generated names because we can't or don't want to pronounce their name for themselves.

What are the odds that the Vulcans call themselves something like "Vvul'kynz" or the Romulans call their twin planets "Rum-ewe-luz" and "Rie'muss"?


It reminds me of Douglas Adams's passage about gin and tonic from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe:

It is a curious fact, and one to which no one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian 'chinanto/mnigs' which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan 'tzjin-anthony-ks' which kill cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.

What can be made of this fact? It exists in total isolation. As far as any theory of structural linguistics is concerned it is right off the graph, and yet it persists. Old structural linguists get very angry when young structural linguists go on about it. Young structural linguists get deeply excited about it and stay up late at night convinced that they are very close to something of profound inportance, and end up becoming old structural linguists before their time, getting very angry with the young ones. Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and unhappy discipline, and a large number of its practitioners spend too many nights drowning their problems in Ouisghian Zodahs.

 

[William Leisner]

Tellarites.

Also, I rather like the Payav (singular and plural), from the Mere Anarchy ebook series.

 

[Christopher]

Nobody's mentioned Ferengi yet. You guys are slipping.

The problem there is that it's still an Earth-based name. Ferenghi is actually the Turkish word for a Frenchman, and by extension a European.

It seems clear that some species names are simply assigned to them by humans, rather than being the original names created by the species itself. There are either lots of sound-alike species names that are, coincidentally, identical to human mythology/astronomical names (e.g., Vulcans/Vulcan, Romulans/Romulus, Rigellians/Rigel)...or else, we're just giving them convienient human-generated names because we can't or don't want to pronounce their name for themselves.

What are the odds that the Vulcans call themselves something like "Vvul'kynz" or the Romulans call their twin planets "Rum-ewe-luz" and "Rie'muss"?

Except as I mentioned in the "Edosians vs. Triexians" thread just yesterday, ENT: "Minefield" made it quite explicit that the Romulans do in fact call themselves "Romulan," or at least something that's pronounced exactly the same way. However, it's still possible that the real name for their homeworld is something like, say, "Rahmyel," and humans just interpret that as "Romulus" (and give its twin planet the name "Remus") due to the similarity of sounds.

I usually try to give my Trek aliens names that don't follow the usual patterns: Irriol, Choblik, Pak'shree, Pa'haquel, Vomnin, Fethetrit (singular: Fethet), Manraloth, Mabrae, Gororm, etc. Although I've done a couple of species names ending in "-i," which is perhaps the third-most cliched and Earthlike suffix after "-an" and "-ite" (Rianconi, Redheri).

 

[Stevil2001]

The Future Begins introduces the Kropaslin (though the pronunciation of the name is a point of contention between the authors) as well as the Guidons.

 

[captcalhoun]

Gorn, Wadi, Dosi, Betazoid, Bynar, Brikar, Hermat, Tzenkethi, Metron, Voth, Hirogen, Kazon, Ocampa, Nasat, Gnalish, Pakwa-Thanh, Trill, Sti'atch, Axanar, Orion, Kobliad, Zakdorn, Benzite, Rhaanderite, Cairn, Grazerite, Trabe, Aaamazerite, Arkenite,

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Category:Species

 

[Christopher]

^^Well, "-ite" is no better than "-(i)an," really. They're both English suffixes. For that matter, so's "-ish" (as in Gnalish). And while "-on" isn't common in real demonyms, it's quite common in SF: Klingon, Kazon, Malon, Vorgon, Vorlon, Vogon, Cylon, Zygon, Gamilon, Decepticon, etc. (And the planet Krypton, though the demonym is "Kryptonian.") I don't count "Orion" because the pronunciation/emphasis is different, but of course Orion is the name of a figure from Greek mythology and the constellation named after him, so it hardly counts as an alien name.

 

[Stevil2001]

I always thought "-ese" was distressingly underused in Star Trek.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I haven't read Destiny yet, that's my in-flight entertainment for my holiday, but I find the name of the race/culture interesting. The Caeliar, linguistically sounds Celtic in origin, not very alien.

 

[Chi'pok]

Hamalki from the Wounded Sky. I always liked the name of the scientist: K't'lk

She always called Scotty... S'ctty or something like that and Jim became J'm I think.

 

[Christopher]

^^That's the weird thing about Duane's alien names -- she'd take the human names for various stars and stick "alien" suffixes on them. Hamalki from Hamal (Alpha Arietis), Sadrao from Sadr (Gamma Cygni), etc.

 

[Sci]

I mean, at the end of the day, we have to accept that a real-life Human author is in general going to be able to make his/her alien names and languages sound only so alien. There's always going to be a limit to the amount of alienness that a person can imagine.

 

[Christopher]

I mean, at the end of the day, we have to accept that a real-life Human author is in general going to be able to make his/her alien names and languages sound only so alien. There's always going to be a limit to the amount of alienness that a person can imagine.

Yeah, but calling your aliens the Blah-blah-ans or the Blah-blah-ians just isn't even trying.

Besides, there are plenty of human languages whose pronunciation is bizarre to English-speakers' ears. Just by studying them, you can find very "exotic" constructions. So defaulting to something that sounds like Latin or Greek -- especially when it's overtly derived from a Latin or Greek word that just happens to be appropriate to the species in question -- is cliche, and is nowhere remotely near the limits of the human imagination.

 

[Dayton Ward]

^ I'm going to name the aliens in my next book the Blahblahlahlans, and credit their genesis to you.

 

[Christopher]

No more blah-blah-blah!