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Today I received a comment on my story "The Daughter" in it the person who commented, said that Vulcans do NOT have middle and last names.

OOOKKKKAAAAYYYYYY. Lets say that there is a population of two Billion on vulcan. Yhere is bound to be a whole herd of females named T'Pol. How are they going to be designated? T'Pol 264; T'Pol 3.448; T'Pol 6000? Or would they have at least a Clan name. But if it is a large enough clan the might a a hundred women in it with the name T'Pol What then? Another number?

Perhaps Vulcans do have at least a last name; a Family name.

Now T'Pol when she came on board the Enterprise simply introduced herself as T'Pol She was the only Vulcan on board so no need for a family name to be given.

In my stories Trip and T'Pol have three kids. since they are half human they all have a first, middle and last names.

What do you think. Do Vulcans have middle and last names?

SB

Actually, they dealt with this topic in TOS. Vulcans have clan names, BUT it takes years for a human to learn how to pronounce them with reasonable accuracy, (I think Hoshi might be an exception). That said, they don't typically middle names.

Also keep in mind that the names we know: Spock, Tuvok, T'Pol, are all English transliterations of their actual pronunciations in Vulcan! Spock once told (either Kirk or Bones) that if he told them the Vulcan pronuciation of his name they'd never be able to say it. So while "T'Pol" might be common name, the Vulcan pronunciation of her name might be completely unique among her own people.

That said, I think it's perfectly plausible that TnT would give their children first, middle, and use his family name.

PS this isn't unusual, think of how we pronounce Names like David in Hebrew it sounds VERY different.

SB

The Vulcans may not have middle names, but they do use their ancestry to distinguish between themselves, as shown in this snippet from "The Search for Spock":

PRIESTESS: (in Vulcan) Kal-tor kal-if-fah.
PRIESTESS: Sarek, ...child of Skon, ...child of Solkar, the body of your son breathes still. What is your wish?
SAREK: I ask for fal-tor-pan, the refusion.
PRIESTESS: What you seek has not been done since ages past, and then, only in legend. Your request is not logical.
SAREK: Forgive me, T'Lar. My logic is uncertain where my son is concerned.
PRIESTESS: Who is the Keeper of the katra?
McCOY: I am ...McCoy, ...Leonard H., ...Son of David.
PRIESTESS: McCoy, son of David, since thou art human, we cannot expect thee to understand fully what Sarek has requested. Spock's body lives. ...With your approval, we shall use all our powers to return to his body that which you possess. But McCoy, ...you must now be warned! The danger to thyself is as grave as the danger to Spock. ...You must make the choice.
McCOY: I choose the danger. ...Hell of time to ask.

So even if you have a truck load of T'Pol's, once you add the fathers name, the crowd should become a whole lot smaller and even if you have a handful of T'Pol's with identical fathers names, just add the forefather.

Interestingly enough that is done on Earth as well. Icelandic people do not have surnames. Their 'surname' is the father's name. Let's say we have a man from Iceland named Jon Gunarsson and his wife Hanna Halvardsdottir. (Icelanders do not change surnames on marriage). They have a son and name him Erik. Since his father is named Jon, the child's full name will be Erik Jonsson (Erik son of Jon). If they have a daughter and name her Anja, then her full name will be Anja Jonsdottir (Anja daughter of Jon). This leads to the funny fact that in icelandic families everybody's got a different surname Only sibblings of the same gender will have identical surnames. If Erik had a brother named Leiff, it would be Leiff Jonsson.

The russians do it as well. Each Russian has three names: forename, fathers name, surname. Take Gorbatshev for instance. His full name is Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbatshev, which means, his fathers name was Sergey. Gorbatshev's wife's name was Raissa Maximovna Gorbatsheva, meaning that her fathers name is Maxim. The father's name is used when adressing a person formally. In a formal setting Gorbatshev would always be adressed as Mihkail Sergeyevich, while only in a casual setting he would be adressed as simply Mikhail. Good friends and family members would probably address him by a diminutive form of Mikhail, for instance Mish or Mishka,

One idea that I've run across in a lot of places is the idea that Vulcan clan names are their first names. There's precedent for this one on Earth -- in many Asian cultures, one traditionally puts the surname (family name) first. I think this is also true in Hungary.

This idea would mean that T'Pol most certainly does have a last name: it's T'Pol.

Given the other parallels between Vulcan culture and Eastern Pacific cultures, this would make a lot of sense and I've tended to run with it in my personal canon.

I was thinking of the use of patronymics but, I thought that maybe I wasn't qualified here since there are other people with actual first hand knowledge of the language and culture.

In some Muslim Countires a person can change his name at will. That used to drive the Consular Officers nuts because running a background check was impossible. Consular Officers were supposed to keep criminal types out of the U.S. Background check were meant to do that.

It would appear the opposite, the criminal element is let is and the honest types are kept out. If you look at the many Russian Mafia criminals in the U.S. the Drug types from around th e world, etc.

SB

lfvoy wrote:This idea would mean that T'Pol most certainly does have a last name: it's T'Pol.

I haven't seen that suggested before, and it prompts me to wonder whether T'Pol was being stiffly formal when she suggested they call her T'Pol.

Sidney Poitier wrote:They call me MISTER Tibbs

I'm chuckling at the thought of the rest of the crew being scandalously informal (in Vulcan terms) and treating it as her first name.

I'm pretty certain that according to canon at least T'Pol, Spock, Tuvok ect... are "given" names. But it is an interesting thing to play with.

This thread is really interesting, it makes me think.

Have you any idea how they appear ludicrous the alien names we usually hear in movies and telefilms and read in books and magazines? They inevitably appear as parodies (which, come to think, should in fact push to laughter) of manglings of human names, borrowed from distant languages​​, perhaps even only imagined, that in the minds of their inventors, should have a foreign flavour and far.
Yeah, maybe, but not for me: I find these names, to be honest, a little ridiculous, as I said, because once again one tries to describe something that is impossible to describe: the alienness.
And to do that, not infrequently one falls into the ridiculous, as when it's said that for a Human Being it would be impossible to correctly pronounce the Vulcan language. Such a fact would imply that Vulcans should have completely different physiology from humans, but, in this case, also their anatomy would be different, and, consequently, also their appearance. And, obviously they wouldn't be able to pronounce the human language.

Do you remember my disquisition on the pointy ears?

I'm sorry. I fell again in this trap. But be patient, it is stronger than me, because I think that there's no need to think about things childishly abstruse in order to write nice things, to make dream the readers.
Or, most simply, it would be enough not to seek for scientific explanations to make more scientific the SF babblements that we write: people know they are babblements and love them for what they are: babblements.

Clearly, this is my idea, maybe - most likely - just mine.
And, to speak in all honesty, I certainly are not free from this shortcoming.

When I want reality, I watch CNN. This is supposed to be FUN! It must be relatable otherwise it would be like reading a book in a language you don't know. What's the point in that? There is none. So while we might not be able to comprehend TRUE aliens the point is to HAVE FUN! Or why bother?

WarpGirl, please, let's avoid arguing about something that I think you do not want to grasp in my words.

I wasn't trying to argue about *anything* I'm not trying to deliberately misunderstand you Asso if I am missing your point it's because you're not being clear. This happens when two people who speak a different language try to communicate.

Honestly, I do not think so. In my experience, people understand, when knowing it's the case. Sometime the language barrier is an obstacle, I admit; but, after all, it is not such a big obstacle.
But, please forgive me, enough now. There are more relevant things, at the world, than what I said above.
And we must not forget the topic of this thread. Sorry, Silverbullet.

There are more important things in the world than Star Trek and even than science fiction in general, but I assume that we're all here because at least for a moment we are choosing to ignore that fact.

Asso, I'm not sure whether you realize how obscure some of your posts are to English speakers. Half the time I'm not at all sure what you're trying to say, so don't discount the language barrier here. We're all doing our best to understand you.

Thanks, it is not my language that is obscure. It's me. In fact, I understand you all. Well, almost always.
Certainly, in any case, it's true that I seems being often misunderstood, just as what you said about the reason because of which we are here clearly shows, Distracted. But this is neither my fault nor your fault. It's not my language: as I said, it's me.
But, you must comprehend: I have difficulty to change myself, or, rather, to do it more than how I already did.