I thought it was “Cosmo.”
On the other hand, in Journey to Babel, Amanda says she’s getting better at pronouncing her married name, so it is obviously not Spock (nor is Sarek ever called Ambassador Spock).
Of course, it’s easy to reconcile those two points (through at least 2 methods) -
Option 1) Vulcans have names in the Asian manner - family name first, personal name second, and Spock is being terribly literal in his response, as Spock was frequently wont to do, either ignoring, or missing, the fact that she meant his personal name.
Clearly, while Vulcan personal names are not terribly problematic for non-Vulcans, their family names are…they probably include not only phonemes not found in non-Vulcan languages, but complex structures…and are probably archaic, even by Vulcan standards. And Vulcans are probably less amenable to having their family names altered to make them easier for non-Vulcans to say. (Since first contact (or at least first contact with a race they didn’t end up hostile to - I doubt they tried to make it easy for Andorians to pronounce their names, for instance) they’ve probably taken to giving less complicated personal names to their children, or at least names easily shortened into something non-Vulcans can handle.)
Option 2) Vulcans don’t have a distinction between personal and family names, and simply use a more pronounceable portion of their names when dealing with Non-Vulcans.
In Spock’s case, ‘Spock’ would be a later portion of his name, since his first name is unpronounceable by humans. On Vulcan he could very well be called ‘Tłəarxxœł’.
Amanda, in this case, would have taken a Vulcan name upon marriage, but continues to call herself Amanda when dealing with anyone not a Vulcan. And probably leaves it to Sarek to tell other Vulcans what her name is, since she can’t pronounce it well.
I have always thought that Vulcans gave easier names to humans so they could pronounce it. It does make sense that his first name is really a family name, as, otherwise, Spock and Sarek have different family names. Then again, I believe there are societies where that works.
Here’s a question I never got an answer to: what is up with all of the Klingon spoken in the series (TNG and DS9)? In one scene a Klingon speaks an insult in his own language so that the non-Klingons won’t understand what he meant, but another character apparently does know Klingon and this is remarked upon.
Why does ANYONE need to learn Klingon? There’s a UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR in operation which changes any language spoken into that of the person hearing it. Surely all Klingons are speaking their own language but you don’t realise is because it’s being translated? If that’s not the case, why is it ONLY KLINGONS this is an issue for? No other species suddenly regularly lapses into their own language despite the presence of the universal translator.
I wonder what ever became of Khan from Space Seed … ?
I heard he got married, settled down…
Found a nice little island and set up a resort.
Nothing of KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANsequence.
Add my thanks for posting that, but for a different reason. Now that I’ve read the synopsis of the Shatner-“written” Kirk books, I have no need to read the books. Ugh… the worst kind of fan-service namedropping. I didn’t love Kirk’s death scene in Generations, but it’s way better than involving the Borg, DS9, V’Ger, and the Mirror Universe…
I had much the same thoughts when I first saw the book(s), but, … well, … it works.
Really, no fizzbin.
What did you think of the novel Dark Mirror? I was almost sorry to see that the Empire got killed off in DS9.
Spock is his first name. But like with many meetings-of-cultures, his high and noble family name has become an embarrassment.
It is “Adoodledoo”.
…snerk…
Read it once long ago… I think I liked it at the time, but have only vague memories of it now. The Mirror Universe is a fun idea, it’s just been a few too many times to the well for my taste.
Here’s a question:
Where DID Admiral Archer’s pet beagle get to?
The dog was an allasomorph and later got ‘jiggy’ with Wesley. :eek:
<hastily hides StarFleet Academy book> Gosh, I’d like to, but I just don’t read ST books… 
I would like to think that Guinan and Q are indeed opposite “sides” of some kind of force in the universe. But that one TNG where Guinan is with Sam Clemens etc–that one is weird as hell. Like an acid trip gone bad.
I like Shatner’s ST books. I vastly prefer them to [cannot think of author’s name, but he wrote a book about The City on the Edge of Forever where Bones essentially settles down in Virginia somewhere and is happy that his other crew members won’t find him. He marries some Dixie chick–it’s one of the most boring books ever written.], but I will admit that they do require patience at times.
How did Shatner know how to write books involving current characters and races of the time? In an interview a year or two ago, he told Stewart, Frakes, Nimoy, and Goldberg that he had never even seen an episode of TNG era series.
Provenance of Shadows is the book you were thinking of, and thus, the "boring author would be David R. George III. Fortunately, he hasn’t written that much.
Shatner writes an outline but Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (Trek experts if there ever were any) fill in the blanks.
I suspect Shatner’s outline looks like so:
CAPTAIN KIRK, the best Starfleet captain in all of history and time, makes love to his wife repeatedly while his enemies scheme against him. Because CAPTAIN KIRK is so AWESOME his enemies cannot abide his AWESOMENESS and must kill him even though he is content to make love to his beautiful, exotic, beautiful, amazing, super-special wife for all of time. His enemies pull some NEFARIOUS SHIT causing CAPTAIN KIRK to put his BOOTS OF AWESOME on and start kicking some Klingon/Romulan/Borg/All other comers ass!
Although his enemies are NUMEROUS and POWERFUL and their SHIT is NEFARIOUS, CAPTAIN KIRK is dipped in AWESOME SAUCE and cannot be fooled, tricked, hurt, killed, inconvenienced, lied to, trapped, or fooled again. CAPTAIN KIRK kicks all ass, SAVES THE DAY and THE UNIVERSE and goes back home to be awesome and have lots and lots of awesome hot sex with his wife. CAPTAIN KIRK IS AWESOME THAT IS ALL.
Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens then take this, wrap a 24-ish plot around it, sprinkle liberally with characters from all the shows, shake and stir and voila- a Shatner book is… shat.