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Humans by Any Other Name: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
In [[Speculative Fiction]], the word "human" can seem out of place in a universe where every other species is named after their homeworld. Unless, of course, [https://web.archive.org/web/20100824162041/http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/lingo.html they come from Humus].
As a consequence of this, or perhaps just to sound "exotic", alien cultures often come up with their own monikers for [[Puny Earthlings]]. Indeed, the word "Earthling" itself is an example, and it also shows that most of the time, oddly enough, they name humans after our own terms for our planet and its surroundings, rather than whatever Earth or the Sun is named in ''their'' language.
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A subtrope of this is [[Planet Terra]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== General ==
* "Terran" (from the Latin ''Terra'', "Earth") is probably the most popular choice by far, which crept into all kinds of settings, from ''[[Starship Troopers]]'' to ''[[Blake's 7]]'' to ''[[StarCraft]]'', along with [[wikipedia:Terran|other examples]]. It probably got popular because it sounds like [[Planet of Hats|what you might call some alien race]], and, at some point, wasn't immediately recognisable as "Earth", so it feels "alien". "Terran" also [[Rule of Cool|sounds cooler]] than "Human".
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** The term "humanoid" refers to anything relatively human-shaped (bipedal, upright, two arms, one head), including [[Ridiculously-Human Robots]], [[Rubber Forehead Aliens]], and denizens of the [[Uncanny Valley]]. Sentience and genetic relation to humankind are not required.
== Anime
* ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'' gives us the title of ''Pekoponjin'', because they refer to Earth as "Pekopon". In the manga it was "Pokopen", a rather nasty Japanese word for the Chinese, which was changed for obvious reasons.
* In ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'', humans and miniaturized Zentradi are known as "Microns" ("Micronians" in ''[[Robotech]]'').
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* In ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', the humans are also referred as "Lilim", {{spoiler|and the entire humanity is the 18th Angel}}.
== Card Games ==▼
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' considered doing this when they first decided to make Human into a creature type (previously, humans had only a "class" creature type and no "race"). They eventually decided to just use human, though.▼
** Kithkin (or Sangamis in the French version), Magic's [[Hobbits]] [[Expy]], could qualify. Especially since in the Lorwyn block, there are the creature type closest to what you would expect from humans (live in cities, have pink skin, use tech rather than magic...) They have the proportions of hobbits and lead idyllic, pastoral, cooperative lives. Lorwyn deliberately had no humans in it at all unless planeswalkers count.▼
** Other creature types like Metathran and Kor showed up around the same time as Human in much the same manner: previously, all members of these races had only had "class" creature types. Apart from their [[Amazing Technicolor Population|blue skin]], both qualify as examples of this trope.▼
▲== Comics -- Books ==
* ''[[2000 AD]]'''s alien Editor-In-Chief, Tharg the Mighty, refers to humans as "Earthlets."
* In the original [[Marvel Comics]] version of the [[Transformers]], the Autobots would refer to us as humans, while the Decepticons used the more derogatory "fleshling".
== Films -- Live-Action ==
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* In ''[[Willow]]'', humans are referred to as "Daikini".
* In [[Tron]], the programs call humans "Users".
== Literature ==
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* The [[Our Dragons Are Different|Kantri]] of [[Tales of Kolmar]] call humanity "Gedri", [[You Are the Translated Foreign Word|Silent Ones]], because humans {{spoiler|mostly}} can't use or hear the psychic "truespeech" that Kantri have as well as vocal speech.
* The animals from [[Tamora Pierce]]'s ''Immortals'' quartet call humans "two-leggers", for obvious reasons.
== Live-Action TV ==
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** Names for the earlier races seem to be names given to them by Humans, rather than what they actually call each other. The two Romulan home worlds are Romulus and Remus, then there's the afore-mentioned Vulcan and Kronos...whoever was naming these races seemed to have a yen for Greco-Roman mythology.
** On at least one occasion, a Klingon has been heard referring to his homeworld as Kling. Of course, Star Trek suffers massively from [[Canon Discontinuity]]. And, it's also been said that the original Klingon Homeworld was destroyed, and Qo'noS is the "new" Klingon Homeworld.
** Also in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', one (nonhumanoid—indeed, ''inorganic'') alien race referred to our intrepid crew as "[[Call a Human a Meatbag|ugly bags of mostly water]]." The science officer points out that this is technically accurate.
== Puppet Shows ==
* Mysteron agents in ''[[Captain Scarlet]]'' would use "Earthman" after having broken, or in order to break, the [[Masquerade]]. The invisible Voice of the Mysterons themselves also announced "We know that you can hear us, Earthmen" each week.
* In the earlier [[Gerry Anderson]] show ''[[Stingray (1985 TV series)|Stingray]]'', various sea-dwelling uglies would call humans "Terraneans," since we come from land (terrain).
* In ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'', the Fraggles call humans "silly creatures"; not an insult, as they ''like'' things that are silly. {{spoiler| Doc later agrees it's a rather accurate description.}}
== Tabletop Games ==
▲=== Card Games ===
* ''[[Traveller]]'' divides "humaniti" into the "Solomani" (humans from Earth), the "Vilani" ([[Human Aliens]] from the planet Vland), and the "Zhodani" ([[Human Aliens]] from the planet Zhodane). The ancestors of the Vilani and the Zhodani were originally moved to those planets by the [[Precursors]]. There are several other minor human races, which were similarly transplanted from Earth.▼
▲* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' considered doing this when they first decided to make Human into a creature type (previously, humans had only a "class" creature type and no "race"). They eventually decided to just use human, though.
▲** Kithkin (or Sangamis in the French version), Magic's [[Hobbits]] [[Expy]], could qualify. Especially since in the Lorwyn block, there are the creature type closest to what you would expect from humans (live in cities, have pink skin, use tech rather than magic...) They have the proportions of hobbits and lead idyllic, pastoral, cooperative lives. Lorwyn deliberately had no humans in it at all unless planeswalkers count.
▲** Other creature types like Metathran and Kor showed up around the same time as Human in much the same manner: previously, all members of these races had only had "class" creature types. Apart from their [[Amazing Technicolor Population|blue skin]], both qualify as examples of this trope.
=== Tabletop RPGs ===
▲* ''[[Traveller]]'' divides "humaniti" into the "Solomani" (humans from Earth), the "Vilani" ([[Human Aliens]] from the planet Vland), and the "Zhodani" ([[Human Aliens]] from the planet Zhodane/Zhdant). The ancestors of the Vilani and the Zhodani were originally moved to those planets by the [[Precursors]]. There are several other minor human races, which were similarly transplanted from Earth.
* In ''[[Nobilis]]'', humans get referred to as "beasts".
* In ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'', the Eldar race refers to humans as "Mon-keigh" (this being the eldar word meaning 'inferior', not to mention one of the [[Anvilicious|least subtle]] puns ever). The Tau race use the term "Gue'vesa" or "Gue'la" (derived from a Chinese word for foreigners), depending upon whether said human(s) are allies or no. The remaining species of the universe (Orks, Necrons and Tyranids) refer to humans as "'umies", "the living", and "dinner", respectively.
** The Tyranids were retconned to actually be named after a world - Tyran, the first Imperial planet they ''ate''. Knowing the Imperium, the name probably came from some filing protocol: the Tyranids were first properly identified on the planet Tyran, and thus the data probably got filed under "Tyran-ID" and the name stuck.
* The chock-fulla-weird-races ''[[Talislanta]]'' game system generally refers to humans by their nationality, and virtually ''never'' as "humans". The fact that some of those "human" nationalities lie well outside the range of physical types known on Earth—green humans, metallic golden humans, purple humans; humans with bat ears or webbed hands or no nose—would make the use of "human" seem incongruous at best.
== Video Games ==
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* In ''[[StarCraft]]'' the term "terran" (lowercase even!) is used as a substitute in nearly all instances to describe humanity, even if the ones speaking are themselves humans. This is particularly strange since Earth (Terra) isn't even really a factor for most of the game.
* While the term "human" is used in ''[[Rift]]'', humans are more likely to be referred to by whichever of the two battling nations to which they belong.
== Web Animation ==
* ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' has Shisno, which means the excrement of the excrement of the most repugnant creature in the world.
== Web Comics ==
* Aliens in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'' usually call humans Earthlings.
== Web Original ==
* While being human in the modern sense is now very rare in ''[[Orion's Arm]]'', the term terragen is used to denote anything with an ancestry going back to Earth.
* Nepleslians of ''[[Star Army]]'' are displaced humans who were taken from the [[Earth-That-Was]] to [[A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away|a distant sector of space]]. Naturally, they're the setting's main source of [[Badass Normal]]s.
== Western Animation ==
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* ''[[Megas XLR]]''
** Humans are called Earthers by the [[Cthulhumanoid|Glorft]].
** Before that however, [[Widget, the World Watcher|Widget]] used "Earther" when referring to humans.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]▼
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Name's Not the Same]]
▲[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
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