Intolerance
Jul. 23rd, 2004 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alfvaenI was recently surfing on the web, looking at star catalogues. I mentioned some time ago an interest in the naming of stars, and was feeling a bit of the urge to start making lists of names. When looking at lists of stars that already have names, though, I ran across one of my occasional peeves--Alpha Centauri.
You see, it's odd in that the Bayer designation(Greek letter, constellation genitive name)is actually the best-known name of the star(system). It does have other names, though. The best known, for some reasons, seems to be "Rigil Kentauros", or "Rigil Kent". But I really don't like that name. For one thing, there's a much better known "Rigel" in Orion(both names comes from the Arabic word for "foot", sort of like the common "Deneb" means "tail"). But "Kentauros" is obviously Greek, so it's a half-and-half name.
The name I much prefer is "Toliman". The meaning is not as clear, since it means "Grape-vine shoot", and thus relies on you picturing the centaur holding a staff with grape vines wrapped around it. But as a name, it's much better. It's distinctive, and I like the sound of it.
If you Google for Toliman, though, you don't get a lot of references of Alpha Centauri. There's apparently a volcano in Guatemala named Toliman, for instance, with a hotel nearby.
The first page to mention Toliman with reference to Alpha Centauri is, unfortunately, an astrology site, which does nonetheless have a great section on naming, including another name, "Bungula", which I'd never heard before. It's an awful name, unfortunately. And then there's some mystical "Project Toliman" thing which uses it as well. So the name I like seems to have been suborned by astrology and new-age mysticism.
But still, as a name for, say, Earth's first colony world, "Grape-vine shoot" is pretty damn appropriate, don't you think? In one of my abortive planet-creation projects, using SPI's ancient "Universe" role-playing system, I used the name for the habitable planet around Alpha Centauri A. Another link I found by Googling was a remarkably detailed SF universe designed by one John M. Dollan...because he uses it as a name for Alpha Centauri B. He calls A "Kentauros", probably to avoid confusion with Orion's Rigel. A fairly sensible scheme, if you ask me.
It takes a long time searching through Google to find an actual reputable astronomical page for Toliman as Alpha Centauri. There also seems to be some sort of software tool by that name, too, but a pretty obscure one if so. And it is actually a surname, too, though of what ethnicity I can't determine--possibly something Melanesian, so probably unrelated to the star name. As is the volcano, likely(unrelated, not Melanesian).
You see, it's odd in that the Bayer designation(Greek letter, constellation genitive name)is actually the best-known name of the star(system). It does have other names, though. The best known, for some reasons, seems to be "Rigil Kentauros", or "Rigil Kent". But I really don't like that name. For one thing, there's a much better known "Rigel" in Orion(both names comes from the Arabic word for "foot", sort of like the common "Deneb" means "tail"). But "Kentauros" is obviously Greek, so it's a half-and-half name.
The name I much prefer is "Toliman". The meaning is not as clear, since it means "Grape-vine shoot", and thus relies on you picturing the centaur holding a staff with grape vines wrapped around it. But as a name, it's much better. It's distinctive, and I like the sound of it.
If you Google for Toliman, though, you don't get a lot of references of Alpha Centauri. There's apparently a volcano in Guatemala named Toliman, for instance, with a hotel nearby.
The first page to mention Toliman with reference to Alpha Centauri is, unfortunately, an astrology site, which does nonetheless have a great section on naming, including another name, "Bungula", which I'd never heard before. It's an awful name, unfortunately. And then there's some mystical "Project Toliman" thing which uses it as well. So the name I like seems to have been suborned by astrology and new-age mysticism.
But still, as a name for, say, Earth's first colony world, "Grape-vine shoot" is pretty damn appropriate, don't you think? In one of my abortive planet-creation projects, using SPI's ancient "Universe" role-playing system, I used the name for the habitable planet around Alpha Centauri A. Another link I found by Googling was a remarkably detailed SF universe designed by one John M. Dollan...because he uses it as a name for Alpha Centauri B. He calls A "Kentauros", probably to avoid confusion with Orion's Rigel. A fairly sensible scheme, if you ask me.
It takes a long time searching through Google to find an actual reputable astronomical page for Toliman as Alpha Centauri. There also seems to be some sort of software tool by that name, too, but a pretty obscure one if so. And it is actually a surname, too, though of what ethnicity I can't determine--possibly something Melanesian, so probably unrelated to the star name. As is the volcano, likely(unrelated, not Melanesian).
