Design Monologue 7: What's in a Name
What's in a name? Goddamn near everything. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if you randomly decided to call it a "cockfag" instead of a rose, you'd be a dildo.
Names are often overlooked in setting design.
My god, that's an understatement. Most names are utter shite, the kind of meaningless, formulaic rambling that is the precise root cause of the mainstream apathy toward fantasy and science fiction.
It's safe to say I take naming very, very seriously. These are the rules:
- Every name has to have instant appeal. If you forget it after hearing it once, it's not a good name, period.
- Every name has to make sense. A white guy named Suzuki Chavez or a planet named Balls might have an appealing name (to somebody), but will cause dissonance with the audience's conception of how names work. For instance, planets in real life are all named after figures of Grecoroman mythology. A planet named Persephone sounds totally right to our ear, despite the fact that there is no such real planet, while one named Vorblon just sounds totally made up, and evokes every sensation of laughable, antiquated sci-fi tropes of generations past.
Not many, but they're not easy to uphold. Most people just don't try, or, if what they're doing is trying, they should try not to try.
All that in mind, let's make some names.
Stars and Worlds
All planets ("real" and "dwarf") in real life are named after Grecoroman mythological figures. In particular, the seven planets in our solar system besides Earth are named after Roman gods, while the dwarf planets are named after various figures (Ceres, Pluto, Eris). This is an official system, and will likely stand indefinitely, at least for our solar system.
Stars with names have every imaginable etymology. Most of the bright ones were named long ago by Greek, Roman, or Arabian scholars. Many of said names were made up specifically for the star, rather than being named after anyone else. Others have names as pedestrian as "Barnard's Star". Those without names have catalog numbers, such as HD xxxx or HIP yyyy or Wolf zzz, where the first part is the name of the catalog.
When the colony ships arrived in the Homeworlds, they were in a region of space previously invisible, or otherwise utterly unimportant to Earthbound astronmers, and thus all of the nearby systems were uncharted. There may well have been previously named stars, but the statistical likelihood is that the nearest star of known name was many light-years away, perhaps outside of the territory of even the modern Foundation.
Thus, of course, they were tasked with naming the stars they discovered, and the satellites thereof.
There were three distinct phases of nomenclature:
- In the first phase, all three colony ships began mapping and naming nearby stars and planets, oblivious to the discoveries and names of the others. While most acknowledged that, with any luck, they would someday corroborate their discoveries with Earth or the other ships, and possibly have to choose one of several competing names, all were certain their chosen names for their home system and early colonies would stand. Thus, in this period, three different systems were in place.
- In the second phase, when communication had been restored, the Homeworlds agreed to each other's chosen name for already colonized worlds, and hammered out agreements on other discovered stars in the neighborhood. The Homeworlds, to various extent, volunteered to unify, in part or in whole, their naming system and catalogs, and collaborated with each other on future discoveries.
- In the third phase, after the Foundation, an official, Homeworlds-wide system was put into place, with many already colonized systems grandfathered in, and the remainder of catalogued stars and planets renamed and renumbered to suit the new system.
Let us explore the naming of stars and worlds from a historical perspective:
Karma: The Green World
The colony ship lucky enough to locate a beautiful Earth-like planet in nearby space bore a culture of optimistic humanism. From the first launch of their ship, throughout their history, they were committed to the values of scientific discovery, common good, mutual prosperity, and essential liberty. They were children of the 21st century--primarily atheist or agnostic, very much pro-science, very much social capitalists. Their values colored their view of the universe, and directly affected the way in which they chose to name stars and satellites.
Years passed after the initial accident, before they landed on a habitable world. In that time, they had many stars to name and catalog, even before they had chosen a permanent new home. They had planned, originally, to name the satellites of the system in which they arrived, and even, at their option, rename the mother star. They discussed the issue years before the ship launched, and decided that they would name all satellites of their destination system after great scientists, humanists, and other major contributors to human civilization, particularly those whose contribution led to space colonization.
Finding themselves in distant space, they decided to expand their original naming convention to stars. Among the first stars they named: Galileo, Kepler, Herschel, LaPlace, Copernicus, Ptolemy, Brahe, Halley, Cassini, Hipparchus, Baade, Hubble, Bessel, Huggins, Hale, Eddington, Hertzsprung, Olbers, Kuiper, Hevelius. These were the 20 brightest nearby stars not already named.
Next on their list: Baekeland, Berners-Lee, Carson, Crick & Watson (binary), Curie, Einstein, Farnsworth, Fermi, Fleming, Freud, Goddard, Gödel, Hawking, Keynes, Leakey, Planck, Piaget, Salk, Shockley, Turing, Wittgenstein, Wright.
Later rounds of naming included philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas*, Anselm, Augustine, Descartes, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hagel, Nietschze.
Astronauts: Armstrong, Crossfield, Kincheloe, McKay, Walker, White (binary), Peterson, Carpenter, Cooper, Glenn, Grissom, Schirra, Shepard, Slayton, Dana, Gordon, Knight, Rogers, Thompson, Wood, Borman, Conrad, McDivitt, Lovell, See, Stafford, Young, Crews, Aldrin, Anders, Bassett, Bean, Cernan, Chaffee, Collins, Cunningham, Eisele, Freeman, Schweickart, Scott, Williams.
Leaders and Visionaries: Minh, Churchill, Gandhi, Gorbachev, (Benjamin) Franklin, King, Lenin, Mandela, Reagan, Roosevelt (trinary, Franklin Delano, Teddy, Eleanor), Rebel**, Thatcher, Sanger, Walesa, Zedong.
Heroes and Icons: Ali, Diana***, Frank, Hillary & Torgay (binary), Keller, Kennedy, Lindbergh, Teresa, Parks, Pelé.
Builders: Bechtel, Burnett, Carrier, Disney, Ford, Gates, Giannini, Jobs, Kroc, Lauder, Levitt, Luciano, Mayer, Merrill, Morita, Reuther, Rozelle, Sarnoff, Trippe, Walton.
Even artists and entertainers: Ball, quaternary (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Starr) commonly referred to as The Beatles****, Brando, Chanel, Chaplin, Corbusier, Dylan, Eliot, Henson, Joyce, Picasso, Simpson, Sinatra, Spielberg, Stravinsky, Winfrey.
:(**Named for the unknown rebel of Tienanmen Square)
:(***The Princess Diana of Wales, unusual in this list for not using her surname)
:(****The uninspiring formal name is the Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starr system)
Since many of the individuals for which the stars are named shared common or ambiguous last names, the official name of each star is the full name of the individual. Use of this official name varies; most systems do not use it, and of those who do, most use just enough to distinguish the star (such as the Anne Frank system). The full name is often used in formal documentation and speech.
They decided to name planets and satellites after the ideals and values they held most dear. They restricted these names, at first, to seemingly habitable worlds or those with the potential for terraforming, so as not to run out of names too soon. Some of the worlds thus named: Hope, Liberty, Justice, Faith, Honor, Unity, Verity, Grace, Temperance, Peace, Brotherhood, Discovery, Opportunity, and Adventure.
The planet for which they chose to first attempt settlement remained nameless, deliberately, until the settlers arrived. The name of what would likely become their permanent home was something that would take much thought, careful consideration, and time to truly test its worth.
During the first formative years of settlement, during which the planet was carefully probed, studied, and explored (as was the intent of the colony ships), many names were proposed, in a mass brainstorming and discussion session among the 10,000 settlers. Some were quickly shot down, others lingered for a long time.
The short list included:
- Hope, Liberty, Eden, New Eden, Terra Nova, Utopia, Atlantis, Freedom, Eve, Miracle, Destiny, and Gaia.
These were passed over for various reasons, as they wanted the name to reflect their commitment and devotion to the causes of ecological and social responsibility. Names like "Utopia" and "Freedom" imply an extant state of perfection, requiring no effort, while "Atlantis" or "Destiny" might create a false sense of superiority that would corrupt their culture.
In the end, they chose "Karma", a word which simultaneously expresses their gratitude for finding such a wonderful world, and their deep sense of responsibility for maintaining it, and the civilization they would build upon it.
Abel: the Ice World
Not so committed to religious indifference as the greenworlders, the iceworlders opted for the more traditional mythological basis for names.
Since grecoroman mythology had already been tapped for the Sol region of space, and likely future worlds colonized by Earth would continue the tradition, they chose instead to harness a different family of mythological figures: that of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other modern religions. They applied their names quite methodically, to maximize meaning and relevance.
They named the star that would be their new sun first: Eve.
Eve's planets were named for the mythological figure's children; from innermost to outermost:
- Cain, a seared rock in a Mercury-like orbit
- Abel, a frozen waterworld
- Seth, a lifeless dust planet (with one moon, Noah)
- Azura, a gas giant
- Awan, a gas giant
They traced new constellations from their Homeworld of Abel, patterned after the Apostles, which circle the night sky. Abel's north star, a bluish-white supergiant thousands of light-years distant, was named The Savior.
Koruun
Ah, Koruun.
This planet is a challenge. It already has an established name, but that name is ultimately based on "Qu'ran". While I can see people naming stars and planets after Judeo-Christian figures, I can't see much of that happening wish Islam. There are just far too many ways to offend Muslims by doing so. I'm no expert, but it seems like giving the name "Allah" or "Mohammed" to a lifeless ball of fire, gas, or rock, might not rub Muslims the right way.
That being said, that doesn't have to be the origin. Whatever the original Korrunites named the stars and planets, it was all done over again when they were conquered by their own social outcasts.
Korrunites make some crazy claims. There was a time when they did not acknowledge that they were settlers from another world. In the face of indisputable facts, they changed the story to say that Korrunites always lived on Koruun, though some came from Earth and integrated into the existing populace.
As others have tried to convince them of the impossibility of their story, especially the Abelites, quite callously, during their occupation, faithful Korrunites have redoubled their faith in their mythology.
Korrunites developed their own language in a short time, only a few generations, after their initial landing. While it borrows words and syntax from the native tongues of the settlers--English, Mandarin, Spanish, etc--it is very much unique and original. Linguists from other Homeworlds have long studied with fascination the historical and modern dialects of Korra, as the language is called.
All of the names they chose for stars and planets were in their native language. The translations for most of the earlier-named celestial bodies are simple things like animals (native to Koruun, not Earth), mythological heroes (again, of Koruun only), and obvious physical descriptions (such as "The Red Star").
Later, after reestablishing contact with the other Homeworlds, they adopted many of the their sister colonies' names for otherwise unnamed stars, of course, transliterating them into the Koruunite dialect of the day. They even named some of the systems and worlds they settled after "mythological" figures from other Homeworlds (read: fictional characters), having exhausted most of their own good ones.