Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark Namely Nit-Picking

I realize I'm probably being very, very annoying about a minor, insignificant detail; but I must address this before my head explodes:

It irks me when people name *Female* Kryptonians (Name)-El.

Allow me to point out something:


MALE NAMES:
-----------
Jor-El
Zor-El
Kal-El
Kem-El
Mon-El
Jax-Ur
Van-Zee


Female Names
-------------

Lara
Alura
Kara
Mala
Lyla
Ursa

Do you all see the pattern?

My apologies for burdening you all with my psychosis. I simply felt I *had* to get this out in the open. Thankyou for bearing with me.

So that this thread is not wasted, please feel free to air your pet-peeves and grievances here.

uhm, i've never seen that happen, except in one badfic/mary sue parody, which was recently posted to the challenge fic section (though those paragraphs had previously been posted in a thread about mary sue fic, they're certainly fun and worth making more visible).

that's the only case i know of, and it's a special one. (take a look back at the fic and who posted it)

have you seen that happen anywhere else? non-l&c fic, maybe?

Paul

Well, don't females use their fathers' or husbands' names as last names?
Like Kara Zor-El??
And didn't Zara (in Lord of the Flys) say something like "Zara Kalle-Tie (??)" when she called the mothership.

--Bernd

My theory was that the women's names contained the name of their family -- Kal-El is from the house of El, Zara is from the house of Ra, and her brother might be Jel-Ra or something... of course, that does lead to the question of changing names when they get married... not that it's mandatory across space-time or anything, but assuming a new "house" isn't created every time someone gets married, the new couple would probably join one or the other's existing house... and NK society strikes me as the type to assume that the woman changes.

Maybe it'd be Zara when she's single, and Zara Kal-El when she's married...?

PJ
who has no idea what she's talking about

I'd gone searching for a family tree a few weeks ago to see if anyone had mapped out Clark's descendents. I didn't find that, but I did find who his ancestors were. From the trend, it looks like daughters use their father's first names as last names. It doesn't say if it changes at all after marriage, though.

The link is http://theages.superman.ws/Encyclopaedia/el-family.php .

That was my idea too

And maybe women don't change names when they get married.

Just my thought,
AnnaBtG.

Just had a wild idea. If Zara is really Za-Ra (in other words, Za from the house of Ra), maybe she is from the same house as Kal-El's mother. After all, her name was Lara (or, perhaps, La-Ra).

ML

I think what you have is a case of whatever the writers of the current mythos decide they want it to be.

In the silver age, Kal El's cousin Kara (the original Supergirl) was always referred to as Kara Zor El (her father's name). I don't really remember any other female 'full' names being mentioned. But I never remember them ever using a 'house' name with females.

But currently, in the Superman books there is a character calling herself Supergirl and claiming to be the future child of Clark and Lois. She goes by the name of Cir El. Though it appears she's a fraud, it still points out that the current writer feels that he can use the El house name for a female.

So I guess it means... there is no hard answer?

Tank (who figures that in a few years the current writers then will come up with some other way to justify Kryptonian names)

I gave up on trying to figure out Kryptonian names. Sure Kal El and Jor El have their family name in their names, but did Nor, Trey, or Ching? And was Zara's name 'Zara,' or 'Za Ra' (given that she was of the House of Ra). Lara was of the House of Lo, but that wasn't in her name, so does that mean Zara's name was Zara Ra? That sounds a lot like a cheerleading cheer.

See why I gave up and just made things up as I went?


Rac

I'd always kinda figured that Men had the family name (Jor-El), maidens had their father's name (Kara Zor-El), and matrons had their husband's name (Lara Jor-El). Maybe it's just me, but that's how I'd always percieved it. And when girls show up with names like Cir-El and Beth-El (or whoever that lady was in a fanfic in the archives called "Call me Ishmael" or something like that) it just...um...what was I saying again? Oh yeah, I feel like there's a kind of structure to the names, and when authors fail to follow this without indicating that they are doing it on purpose, it makes me feel that the author is in some way incompetent.

I know, I know, I'm probably way out of line. So smack me.

EDIT: By "incompetent," I only mean that they apparently didn't do their homework on the Superman Mythos.

But that isn't the way the show did it, and since a lot of fans of the show aren't fans of the comics, I don't see why the writers should have to both constrain themselves and then try to explain away the discrepancies in the show's storylines. How do I explain why Ching, Nor, and Trey only have one name? Simple, I don't. I don't know why Kryptonians give the names they do, and since the only female names we got on the show were Zara and Lara (and I have no intention of limiting female characters to Nara, Mara, Kara, and Dara), I'm going to stick to the much looser structure the show gave us - all name parts are mono- or bi-syllabic, some people have two parts to their name, some have one. That I can handle.


Rac

And which "Mythos" are you taking as the "right one"? As far as I've seen in my own years of experience with Superman history, there is no one mythos. Are you going by the Silver Age comics? The current comics continuity? By the Chris Reeve movies, the George Reeves series, Lois & Clark, Smallville? The fact remains that each and every one of these takes on the mythos has chosen different elements to use as their canon. And since it's impossible to combine many of these contradictory elements, I say it's impossible for an author to be "incompetent" for not doing so.

Just because you "always kinda figured" and "perceived it" that way doesn't mean that you are right, though. I can understand that it might be a pet peeve of yours, and I have no problem with your expressing that. But to call other writers -- who may actively disagree with you, or who may just be going by the canon of the show they are writing fanfic for (gasp, imagine that!) -- incompetent is, yes, out of line, IMO. As has been shown in this very thread, there is no one right way that has ever been spelled out explicitly, whether in the full Superman mythos or especially in L&C.

Not to mention the fact that naming structure in any culture is a fluid thing. At one time it was unheard of in this country for married women to not have the same last name as their husbands, or for female children to be given "male" names. Now, however, I'm sure we all know of many women in our lives who have kept their maiden names (not to mention Lois Lane) and I have lost count of the number of girls my daughter knows who have names like Bailey, Mackenzie, Ryan, Taylor, Parker ... the list goes on and on.

Kathy

Okay, Okay, I surrender. *raises white flag* You all are right. And I take back the "inept" comment. (BTW, I didn't actually say they *are* inept, that's just the impression I get.) And you're absolutley right about there being more than one set of rules for Superman. Perhaps I was being a bit closed minded. Thankyou for showing me the light; though I will probably still wince a little when I see a hyphenated female Kryptonian name.