It isn't just one of your holiday games

[stillsostrange]

I'm currently engaged in a delicate flirtation with Salvage. For those of you playing along at home, Salvage is my honest-to-Cod SF book. Protobook. Theoretical book. Something.

She's a world-weary cop with a crooked partner and only a few weeks left on the job. She's a betentacled parthenogenic alien scientist who wasn't even supposed to be here today. They fight crime and attempt to avoid diplomatic incidents.

My current problem--besides not having a plot, of course--is that I don't have names for my two MCs. The human cop is just waffling between a few choices, and will settle on one eventually. The alien scientist, on the other hand, completely stumps me. I don't have a naming convention for the aliens.

Should I conlang some names for them? Have them adopt human nicknames when dealing with humans? I want to avoid either Space Elf naming conventions, or anything remotely close to Japanese Aliens (or J'onn J'onzz, for that matter). But they also need names that I--let alone readers--can figure out, and preferably pronounce.

Thoughts, LJ?

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I think it'd depend on how you're handling language in the setting. If everyone is speaking Future English, then English-style nicknames would make sense proportionally to how distant from English/human speech the aliens' native language is.

If everyone is speaking through tech translators, then maybe somewhat literal translations; the English character named Heather is actually being called "Purple Flower" by the alien or what not, and the alien's elegant and venerable old family name may be spoken as Pond-Dredger by the humans due to literal translation.

If they're speaking some Future Language that both humans and aliens can equally pronounce, then a relatively short collection of syllables that could be a nickname or approximation of the alien's real name would probably suffice. (Just like the alien calls her partner, Esmeralda Oppenheimer, "Esme" or "Oppie".)

[beccastareyes]

If everyone is speaking through tech translators, then maybe somewhat literal translations; the English character named Heather is actually being called "Purple Flower" by the alien or what not, and the alien's elegant and venerable old family name may be spoken as Pond-Dredger by the humans due to literal translation.

Well, now, part of me wants to write an alien-POV story where the alien can't speak or understand* human languages and so hir narration does translate all names into their meanings. (Knowing my actual writing track record, this would get as far as looking up names on name-meaning websites and then getting lost in a wiki-wander.)

* Or can't record human phonology. Turning it around, it might be easy for me to record/remember Pond-Dredger than '1.5 second flash of reddish orange in the middle, followed by two short flashes of gray to either side' and trust that the listeners can look it up in a English to color-speaking-alien-squid dictionary. (And I don't think I'd be offended to be 'to bind' in color-speaking alien squid language; and it probably would be less likely to offend than a nickname by physical description where you might step on some beauty taboos or something.)

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Yes! I've been thinking about this ever since I read some beautiful rant--I forget where--about translating names of "primitive" people into their literal meanings, but leaving the names of "advanced" people in their native forms. So it's Sitting Bull instead of Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake, but Andrew Jackson instead of Man, Son of God Is Great. And I suspect the same could come into play--in either direction--when dealing with aliens.

[beccastareyes]

Actually, now that I think about it, back when I was doing a webcomic in my college days, I deliberately named the spaceships after bright stars and celestial objects, because I figured most of the species in the area, regardless of how they spoke, had a word for 'that bright binary star over there'. So if the Albireo was coming in to dock at a station that couldn't even pronounce its name, they'd just get a ping for whatever they called that star in the local language. A bit harder to figure out what to do with things named after dead people or flora/fauna. (I suppose virtues and qualities could also work...)

[ammitnox.livejournal.com]

Whoa! I want to read that rant!!

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I have no idea where it was posted; I suspect that searching for George Washington, the example name they used, wouldn't help. But it was a tiny moment of satori when I read it for the first time.

[kai ashante wilson (from livejournal.com)]

Maybe a combination of alien with an English tag that acknowledges a particular characteristic. Typical names, for example: "Oue Bright Red," "Aei Violet," "Yoa Bluegreen," etc.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

That might work well, actually. I know my aliens have chromatophores, so I was considering something with a color component. That would let me use pretty color words like alizarin.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I like that idea.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Can I vote for this too?

[mmaresca.livejournal.com]

Like some of the others have said, you should think about if the alien language is something human throats can even replicate, let alone if you can represent it with the English alphabet. A literal-translation of name might work. Or possibly changing rough sounds into a nickname. (Off the top of my head, a screech and a click could become "Ei-tik", or such....)

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Cagney and Lacey?

(This was not meant to be a serious suggesstion, BTW, but I don't know that everyone has the same sarcasm filter...)

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

since we tend to nickname through a lot of cartoons, please avoid Squiddly Diddly, and I tend to lean more towards Beanie and Cecil...

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the aliens go through human dictionaries (or better still, literature) and choose words with meanings or contexts that they like. You could then have an alien who is known among humans as "Chocolate Herrings".