Re: Vulcan names
Steven Boozer 
Tue, 20 Oct 1998 16:33:35 -0500

: From: Steven Boozer:
:>It is interesting that TPTB chose not to give either one a traditional=20
:>/S/ name.=A0 Maybe /S/ names for males are out of fashion in the 24th=20
:>century. They're not nearly as common as they were some 80 years before
:>in the TOS era, the legendary time of "cowboy diplomacy".
:=20
: I still think it's most likely that Vorik and Tourik are in Starfleet,
: a breech of so called Vulcan pacifism.
:=20
: --Sorik

Really?  Then how do you explain the names of Capt Storril (The Emissary)=
,
Capt
Satelk (The First Duty) and Adm Savar (Conspiracy) as well as Adm T'Lara
(Rules
of Engagement) and - stretching it - Starfleet Academy candidate T'Shanik
(Coming of Age).  What about Security Minister Satok (Gambit), who was
apparently in charge of the V'Shar (Vulcan Intelligence), not exactly a
pacifist organization though, no doubt, considerably less deadly than mos=
t
such
agencies.  These all sound like perfectly standard /S/ and /T'/ names to =
me.

Did Spock ever say he had to change his name when he entered Starfleet?  =
His
father certainly assumed Spock would either go to the Vulcan Science
Academy or
follow his own footsteps in the Diplomatic Corps, so he would have had no
reason to have given his son a militant, non-standard name when he was bo=
rn.=20
In fact, just the opposite, to show his bi-racial son was culturally as
"orthodox" a Vulcan as everyone else.  Not that Sarek wasn't angered by
Spock's
defiance and choice of profession, but he didn't order his son to change =
his
name; he just didn't speak to him for many years.

Not even Sarek's other son Sybok changed his orthodox name when he reject=
ed
Surak's philosophy and was subsequently exiled from Vulcan.  In fact, I'v=
e
always been puzzled by this, since religious and philosophical innovators
often
change their names for ideological - and propaganda - reasons.

We have to look elsewhere for an explanation for Tuvok's, Taurik's, Xon's=
 and
Vorick's names.  The simplest explanations - barring a direct answer from
Tuvok, probably in reply to an intrusive question from Neelix or Paris - =
are
simply ethnic/regional customs, or even the parents' personal preference.=
 =20


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Steven Boozer     The University of Chicago Library      s-boozer*uchicag=
o,edu