Origins of character names

[alpha_leonis]

This is a topic I find personally fascinating (although the rest of you might not as much.) Either way, I thought I'd throw it out there.

Does anybody have any insight on why different characters were named the way they were named? A few examples I know about:

• Montgomery Scott was the name of James Doohan's grandfather IRL.
• Christine Chapel's name was a pun on the Sistine Chapel.
• William Riker, as a character, was directly based on William Decker, with only a slight name change.
• Geordi LaForge was named after George LaForge, a quadriplegic fan who Gene Roddenberry met once at a convention.
• Odo's name was deliberately invented as a palindrome, as a reflection of the character's "inscrutable" personality. (The Cardassian-language retcon was invented later.)
• Jonathan Archer was originally supposed to be named Jackson Archer, but the name was changed for legal reasons (a public records search revealed there is exactly one real person named Jackson Archer in the United States, and they wanted to avoid any legal accusation that the character was named after the real person.)

Any other examples that anybody knows about?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

There’s the Wesley middle name thing.

 

[Tim Thomason]

1. Khan Noonien Singh and Noonien Soong were named after the same guy, allegedly (whether or not Kim Noonien Singh existed has not been proven).
2. James Tiberius Kirk shares a middle name with William Tiberius Rice of Roddenberry's The Lieutenant TV show. Will Riker may have also been named for Rice, and probably his friend Paul Rice.
3. Bob Wesley and Thomas Eugene Paris, also get their names from Roddenberry.
4. Mr. Leslie and Mr. Lemli are named for Shatner's daughters.
5. Admiral Mark Jameson was originally written as James T. Kirk in the planning stages, and his last name reflects this.
6. Charles Tucker was originally going to be nicknamed "Spike", but the existence of a Spike on UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer nixed that plan, and they changed it to "Trip".
7. Nurse Temple on TNG was named in homage to Nurse Chapel from TOS.
8. Rayna Kapec was named for writer Karel Čapek, who came up with the word "robot".

 

[Tracy Trek]

7. Nurse Temple on TNG was named in homage to Nurse Chapel from TOS.

I don't recall a nurse Temple. What episode/episodes?

 

[Tim Thomason]

I don't recall a nurse Temple. What episode/episodes?

Transfigurations

 

[Nerys Myk]

They could have called her Nurse Kirk as a double homage.

 

[Push The Button]

Here is an easy one: Not a character, but the USS Kelvin was named for Harry Kelvin, JJ Abrams' grandfather.

Also not a character, but the Klingon species was named after Lt. Wilbur Clingan, a colleague of Gene Roddenberry from his LAPD days.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

They could have called her Nurse Kirk as a double homage.

I'm hoping someday we'll see Matron Cathedral

 

[Tim Thomason]

I also forgot to mention the big one from Discovery. Paul Stamets is named after Paul Stamets. Really, one of the more on-the-nose namings.

 

[Prax]

Sisko might be short for Fransisco, which basically means "Frenchman."
(And apparently also means "free man)

Picard was named after the scientist brothers Picard, and that name comes Picardy, a region of France.

Janeway is an Anglofied Italian name, like "The Genovese crime family"
(actually, It's an anglofied form of the French form of an Italian name, so France strikes again)

There are many famous historical figures named Archer(usually a first name), but Jonathon Archer may have been named after Colin Archer, famous Norwegion naval architect, who designed numerous ship-rigged vessels, including those that were used in early North Pole & Antarctic expeditions.

Here is an easy one: Not a character, but the USS Kelvin was named for Harry Kelvin, JJ Abrams' grandfather.

Also not a character, but the Klingon species was named after Lt. Wilbur Clingan, a colleague of Gene Roddenberry from his LAPD days.

Interesting, I had assumed it was named after William Thomson.

 

[FormerLurker]

Janeway is an Anglofied Italian name, like "The Genovese crime family"

Interesting. Is it taken from "Genovese", or from "Genoa" itself?

I'm lazy, or I'd do my own research.

 

[MAGolding]

As Prax says, Janeway is from French (Genoveis) which comes from Italian Genovese? meaning Genoese. Curiously I remember a fictional character named Janeway, a colonel Janeway in The Command (1954).

I don't know if any of the creators of Voyager remembered that movie, but I don't remember any episode where Janeway mentioned any ancestor of hers in the US military 500 year earlier.

 

[Tosk]

Here is an easy one: Not a character, but the USS Kelvin was named for Harry Kelvin, JJ Abrams' grandfather.

And the USS Franklin was named for Justin Lin's father, Frank Lin.

 

[Klaa2]

This is a topic I find personally fascinating (although the rest of you might not as much.) Either way, I thought I'd throw it out there.

Does anybody have any insight on why different characters were named the way they were named? A few examples I know about:

• Montgomery Scott was the name of James Doohan's grandfather IRL.
• Christine Chapel's name was a pun on the Sistine Chapel.
• William Riker, as a character, was directly based on William Decker, with only a slight name change.
• Geordi LaForge was named after George LaForge, a quadriplegic fan who Gene Roddenberry met once at a convention.
• Odo's name was deliberately invented as a palindrome, as a reflection of the character's "inscrutable" personality. (The Cardassian-language retcon was invented later.)
• Jonathan Archer was originally supposed to be named Jackson Archer, but the name was changed for legal reasons (a public records search revealed there is exactly one real person named Jackson Archer in the United States, and they wanted to avoid any legal accusation that the character was named after the real person.)

Any other examples that anybody knows about?

• Odo calls to mind Odo, bishop of Bayeux, brother of William the Conqueror. An earlier Odo was St Odo of Cluny. Odo or Eudo is a pretty common early mediaeval name
• The Cardassians sound Armenian - I assume that that is where Kim K.’s family derives from
• Does Lon Suder owe something to Lon Chaney ?
• Ferengi = Arabic for “Franks”. Compare the Varangian Guard at Constantinople.
• The planets Romulus & Remus, & possibly Wolf 359, take their names from Livy’s account of the foundation of Rome: R & R were suckled by a she-wolf.
• Tellarites: compare the name Tellus as an alternative to the more familiar Terra as the Latin name for Earth.
• Adonais, as “Who Mourns for A. ?”, looks like a reference to a poem by John Keats.
• I thought the USS Franklin might be named after the explorer Sir John Franklin. No ?
• Physics is not my thing at all, but even I can see where Quark gets his name.
• Vulcan was the Roman equivalent of the Greek artificer-god Hephaestus
• Denobula sounds as though it owes something to the star called Deneb in Arabic.
• Phlox is a Greek word for “flame”, & a species of flame-red flower.
• When I see the name “Kelvin”, I think of the Scottish Victorian scientist, and the unit named after him.