Linguistics of Star Trek names

jonsills

So, most of us knew that "Ferengi" was pretty much swiped from the Farsi word "ferenji", originally meaning "foreigner" but later specifically "Western foreigner".

A historical reference on YouTube sent me into a bit of light research, during which I learned that the Illyrians were originally an ethnic group living in what is now the Balkan region; an Illyrian kingdom north of the Roman Republic gave the Romans a little trouble off and on between the Second and First centuries BCE. The historian Thucydides says that they were broken up into a number of tribal regions; some were ruled by hereditary kings, some by elected warrior-kings, and some simply by tribal affiliations.

Anyone know of any other semi-obscure (from a Western perspective) loan-words or ethnic groups used like this in Trek?

baddmoonrizin

Nausicaans are named for the Greek princess Nausicaa from Homer's Odyssey. Her name means "burner of ships." Rather appropriate for our mercenary friends.

qultuq

Except the really obvious Greek and Latin influences in Romulus, Remus, Kronos, Orion, Vulcan, and Troyius, I don’t really know of any myself. A little digging has yet to yield anything substantial. Many fantasy words are based on or corrupted from common words. You can find examples from Tolkien to Hubbard.

Klingon apparently comes from a corruption of the name Wilbur Clingan. Iconia apparently means “A rare gift from god” in Nigerian. But the words in Star Trek is probably influenced by the Greek “Ionia” and “icon.”

I finally found an article with a few other examples. “Jemadar“ was apparently an old Indian term for a soldier during the British Raj administration.

https://intl.startrek.com/news/defining-alien-names-from-cardassian-to-vulcan?amp