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Context:

Names in The Murderbot Diaries (character spoilers)

All Systems Red:

Ayda Mensah — "Ayda" is of Arabic origin, meaning “returning, to come back." Mensah is a Ghanian surname (most common surname in current-day Ghana), apparently meaning “third-born”

Pin-Lee — Chinese. Could mean a several things, depending on how it is written.

Ratthi — Possibly a derivative of Hindu goddess of love “Rati.” The surname “Rathi” originates from/is often found in Northern India.

Bharadwaj — A Sanskrit name common to northern India. “Bharadwaja,” was a Vedic saint of ancient India, a renowned scholar.

Arada — In Spanish, "arada" means "plowing." In Turkish, “arada” means “between.”

Overse — “överse” in Swedish translates to “overlook, disregard (the faults of others), ignore, tolerate, forgive” or “to oversee, to review, inspect, monitor, survey.”

Volescu — Possibly Romanian

Gurathin — A mystery. Possibly a variation of the Sanskrit "Krithin"

Artificial Condition:

Eden — Biblical: garden of Eden

Rami — of Arabic origin meaning “archer” or “thrower.” (Etymology honorary mention: the word “tercera” describing Rami’s gender identity, is a spanish word meaning “third”)

Tapan — Hindi name meaning “summer,” “fiery”

Maro — Multiple cultures use the name “Maro,” (Japanese, Greek, Armenian, Hindi)

Tlacey — My bet is this is a space future evolution of the name “Tracey,” which has historically been a masculine name that later became feminine. It means “warlike,” “fierce”

Art — Yes, I know it’s an anagram acronym, but as a human given name, it’s English in origin.

Rogue Protocol:

Rin — Japanese name “dignified, severe, cold,” but may just be a short moniker that Murderbot chose for nondescriptness.

Don Abene — “Don” is a Spanish honorific, masculine. Google search turned up sparse results for “Abene,” with a suggestion that it may be Basque (an Iberian ethnic group), in which it is derived from the word “pillar.” “Abene” could also be a spelling variation of “Abena,” which is a given name meaning “born on Tuesday” (‘day names’ such as these used by Akan people of Ghana). “Abena” is also a Gujarati surname.

Hirune - Thin results again, and once again Basque. Meaning: “trinity, three,” and variation on “Irune”

Miki - A Japanese name, with misc spellings that can mean different things, though typically the first kanji used is “beautiful.” But this may just be intended to be a cutesy short name.

Kader - Arabic, meaning “powerful, capable”

Vibol - Khmer (Cambodian), meaning “abundant, vast”

Brais - Form of Blaise (Gaelic, Latin) English/French

Ejiro - Urhobo / Nigerian, meaning "praise God"

Wilken & Gerth - Both English names, both vaguely military-adjacent

Exit Strategy:

Jian - Chinese (“build” or “strong”), or Hebrew (“God is gracious.”)

Serrat - French surname

Network Effect:

Consuela Makeba - Consuela is a Spanish name meaning “comfort, consolation.” Makeba is an Ethiopian name, after the Queen Makeba.

Mensah’s Marital Partners, Farai and Tano:

Farai - A southern African name of the Shona ethnicity, meaning “joy, happy”

Tano - Possibly Italian, short for Gaetano. Or just a nice 2-syllable name of its own.

Preservation Survey:

Amena - An Arabic name, “honest, faithful.”

Roa - Arabic, or possibly Spanish surname.

Mihail - Romanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Greek. Variation on “Michael.”

Rajpreet - A Sikh name.

Hanifa - Arabic name meaning “true believer”

Kanti - Indian and Bengali name. Means “beauty.”


Thiago - A Portuguese name, derivative of “Santiago” i.e. “Saint James."

Barish-Estranza:

Barish - Hindi for “rain”

Estranza - Spanish for “strangeness”

Eletra - Similar to “Electra” of Greek myth

Ras - Greek name, meaning “to love”

Leonide - Old Greek

ART’s Crew:

Iris - A flower. Also a Greek name meaning “rainbow.”

Seth - Hebrew. “Set, appointed”

Martyn - Variant of Martin. “Dedicated to Mars” (Mars = God)

Tarik - Arabic. “Evening caller”

Turi - Celtic. “Bear”

Kareem - Arabic. “Generous"

Kaede - In the audiobook this is pronounced much like "Katie," meaning "pure." "Kaede" is also a Japanese name meaning "maple."

Fugitive Telemetry:

Lutran - Possibly a variation on “Lutron,” apparently a transliteration from Greek. Which I would think is a stretch, except it means: “the purchasing money for manumitting slaves, a ransom, the price of ransoming; especially the sacrifice by which expiation is effected, an offering of expiation.”

Indah - Indonesian name, “beautiful one”

Tural - Azerbaijani, “to be alive”

Tifany - Variant of Tiffany, English name “manifestation of God”

Farid - Arabic, Persian, Urdu. “Unique, precious”

Aylen - Mapuche (Native American) name. Possibly, “joy”

Balin - Hindi name meaning “soldier, sword”

Tellus - Possibly a Latin name, meaning “earth”

Kiran (mentioned as a name MB used at TranRollinHyfa) - Used in a variety of places and languages: Indian, Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, Gujarati, Nepali, Urdu. From the Sanskrit word “kirana,” meaning “sunbeam.”

Home, Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory:

Councilor Sonje - Variation of Sonia, an English name. Sonia itself may be a variation of the Greek Sophia, meaning “wisdom.”

Councilor Ephraim - In the Book of Genesis, Ephraim was the second son of Joseph, becoming the tribe of Ephraim.

Compulsory:

Sekai - A Shona name. “humorous, joy”

Asa - Hebrew, possibly “healer.”

Elane - Old Greek

Bonus: RaviHyral

Ravi = “Sun” in Hindi

(I’m guessing that other place/company names in the books could also be transliterations.)

[Image descriptions within the alt-text]

Y'all remember that Powerpoint style of media recs from a few years ago? i'm bringing it back for my Very Professional explanation about why YOU should read The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells!

With a HUGE round of kudos to all the wonderful artists who contributed to make this little thing come to life. Featuring the works of:

@non-plutonian-druid for Triple AAA Murderbot and Pin-Lee

@alex-van-gore for Refugee One, Dr. Mensah (from All System's Red), and ART+Murderbot

@grammarpedant from Three in Clay

audzilla@insta for Dr. Mensah (Headshot), Dr. Ratthi, Dr. Gurathin, and Murderbot in Sanctuary Moon Shirt.

Plus official cover art and other tie in pieces by assorted artists

Seriously, everyone's work is amazing, please go check them out!

Murderbot Reference: Character Descriptions Part 1

So, characters and things in Murderbot stories don’t get a lot of physical description, which is very cool, but out of curiosity I went through all 5 books and tried to note every time a character gets a description (body or clothing). 

I also ended up making some non-visual notes, such as the names of Mensah’s marital partners and Amena’s age. Basically, the things I’d want to remember about a character if I was writing or drawing them. Therefore, beware of spoilers.

This got long so it’s under a cut, and I’ve split it into 3 posts. This post contains:

Mensah

Gurathin

Pin-Lee

Ratthi

Arada

Overse, Bharadwaj, Volescu

Wilken and Gerth

Miki & Human-Form Bots

Don Abene

Combat Bot

Amena

Thiago

Other posts: Part 2; Part 3

繼續閱讀

Murderbot has me in a chokehold, tell my projects and school life I love them.

doodling murderbot everyday until i get someone to read it - day 7 (sequel to yesterday’s)