Non-Kerman surnames.

[MedwedianPresident]

If there are any surnames on Kerbin, they should not be limited to Kerman. Especially “civilian” Kerbals (the guys you see working in the assembly hangars) might come from different backgrounds than the Kerman astronaut clan (which seems to be running the whole KSP and form the national elite).

If Kerbal surnames other than Kerman are introduced in the future, which ones would you propose?

My ideas:

 

 

Kerbov

Bigboom

Kernstein

Munhardson

Duncan

Joolidge

Blorbskoy

Buzzman

Krakenson

Dangerkerb

Wingman

Minhard

Mohov

Dresley

Polson

Tylorson

Kerb

[SpaceMouse]

Is it a bit concerning all the Kerbals have the same surname.

[KSK]

3 hours ago, SpaceMouse said:

Is it a bit concerning all the Kerbals have the same surname.

No.

If all Kerbals have the same surname then it becomes meaningless as an identifier. So either they have a life cycle where genetic similarity to other Kerbals is a non-issue, or they have some other way of establishing family ties and connections by which they can guard against inbreeding.

Unless you had some other concern in mind of course.

[roboslacker]

My headcannon is that a kerbal's surname is a sort of caste identifier.

[MedwedianPresident]

9 hours ago, roboslacker said:

My headcannon is that a kerbal's surname is a sort of caste identifier.

Interesting. As such, Kerbals are separated into castes? How are they structured?

Maybe as follows, lowest to highest in standing:

Ordinary civilians (farmers, construction workers) < KSC blue-collar workers (the guys you see running around in the hangar) < Military, ordinary engineers, clerks, doctors, teachers, etc... < Astronauts < Mission directors, head engineers, scientists < The Elite

[KSK]

Interesting chat!

 My headcanon has a kerbal’s surname as a sort of group identifier but there are only two groups and they’re not at all socially rigid, or hierarchical, so they’re not what I’d really think of as castes.

@roboslacker knows all this already  but very briefly, there are two intelligent species on my headcanon Kerbin - the Kerbals and the Kerm.

The Kerm are trees and they have a very long history and indeed prehistory with the Kerbals. Due to certain historical events, a breakaway Kerbal sect formed and declared themselves to be independent of the Kerm. In the language of the time they were Kerm-an - which, of course, has since been shortened to Kerman.

For a variety of peaceful reasons that independence movement failed and Kerbal society evolved into two interdependent groups; the Kerman and the Kermol. Very loosely, the Kermol are farmer-priests - they tend to the Kerm and in return the Kerm provide enormous benefits for Kerbal agriculture. The Kerman are more technologically minded and their society (again very loosely) is a European style social democracy. They have a market economy, capitalism is a thing but for various societal reasons it’s quite strongly moderated - the extremes of wealth and poverty that you see here on Earth, aren’t really a thing on Kerbin.

In-game of course, you never get to see the Kermol, so the only Kerbals you encounter are Kerman.

Sorry about the wall of text - I promise you that was the short version!

Edited October 3, 2018 by KSK

[CatastrophicFailure]

My personal head cannon on the matter is summed up thus: 

[theJesuit]

No no no.  Obviously Kerman is actually their given names, but like archaic institutions everyone is known by their surname.

Just seems like a kerbal way to do it!

Peace.

Edited October 5, 2018 by theJesuit
Needed to sign off. Peace.

[THEdragon]

My headcanon is that other kerbal surnames do indeed exist, but the KSC is run almost exclusively by Kermans. The Kermans are actually all clones sharing a common trait: an obsession with the pursuit of space. That is why the space tourists all have that surname too. Non-Kermans, especially by comparison, tend to be afraid of or disinterested in space, preferring to focus on their Kerbin lives instead. The area of the KSC and its nearby towns is rather surreal to outsiders, given that the majority of its population consists of these clones.

But as far as game canon goes, I do find it peculiar that all the characters share the Kerman surname. If the first names can be randomly generated, then why are the surnames not? And even the non-generated kerbals (Such as Gene and Wernher) have that surname and it's never really mentioned why. It's strange but I like it.

[SpaceMouse]

On 10/1/2018 at 12:45 PM, KSK said:

No.

If all Kerbals have the same surname then it becomes meaningless as an identifier. So either they have a life cycle where genetic similarity to other Kerbals is a non-issue, or they have some other way of establishing family ties and connections by which they can guard against inbreeding.

Unless you had some other concern in mind of course.

It was a thinly-veiled inbreeding joke. Assuming Kerman has some other purpose though (like caste) still seems illogical since then you'd still see at least two or three. 'Kerman' seems meaningless.

[roboslacker]

9 minutes ago, SpaceMouse said:

Assuming Kerman has some other purpose though (like caste) still seems illogical since then you'd still see at least two or three. 'Kerman' seems meaningless.

It could be an honorific.

[MedwedianPresident]

1 hour ago, roboslacker said:

It could be an honorific.

Hm...never thought about that, especially considering how even the movies portray J, B & B as not relatives. Wehrner’s “von Kerman” might be a higher version of the honorific reserved for older people. Is he possibly a former kerbonaut?

Edited October 10, 2018 by MedwedianPresident

[KSK]

3 hours ago, SpaceMouse said:

It was a thinly-veiled inbreeding joke. Assuming Kerman has some other purpose though (like caste) still seems illogical since then you'd still see at least two or three. 'Kerman' seems meaningless.

I thought it was, hence the rebuttal.

As for Kerman being meaningless? *shrug* It makes sense in my headcanon, other folks have suggested some interesting alternatives here - that’s good enough for me.

I particularly liked @MedwedianPresident‘s idea of ‘von’ as an honorific denoting an older Kerbal!

[MedwedianPresident]

Anyway, for the premises of the novella I am writing right now (The Kronos Maneuver), I will be doing a standard human approach, even thiugh I am of a different opinion about kerbals. The kerbonauts are an extended family descending from an emigree from the Kerbal equivalent of Germany who had a title of nobility (Wehrner von Kerman, Jeb’s grandfather). Due to a mistake in the birth register, Wehrner’s two sons (one of them Gene Kerman, Jeb’s uncle) got registered as just “Kerman” instead of “von Kerman” and therefore lost their nobility. Wehrner might have tried to fix that, but eventually he said “screw it”, so the name of the family formally changed.

Fun fact: the same scenario probably applies to Scrooge MacDuck and his nephew Donald Duck.

Edited October 10, 2018 by MedwedianPresident

[THEdragon]

In one of the training scenarios, Wernher says something along the lines of "Efficiency if my middle name (It comes after 'Von')", so take that as you will in terms of the 'Von Kerman' name.

[Klapaucius]

On 10/2/2018 at 5:45 AM, KSK said:

No.

If all Kerbals have the same surname then it becomes meaningless as an identifier. So either they have a life cycle where genetic similarity to other Kerbals is a non-issue, or they have some other way of establishing family ties and connections by which they can guard against inbreeding.

Unless you had some other concern in mind of course.

All Sikhs have the surname Singh.  I think all the folks in Homeworld are S'jets.  So why not? It's their kulture...

At a minimum, they should all begin with a k.

[KSK]

17 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

All Sikhs have the surname Singh.  I think all the folks in Homeworld are S'jets.  So why not? It's their kulture...

At a minimum, they should all begin with a k.

I think you’re taking my comment slightly out of context. There’s no particular reason why all Kerbals shouldn’t have the same surname - my post was a reply to a previous inbreeding joke.

I’ve never been a big fan of k-word overuse (k-word kreep if you like) but each to their own. It’s definitely been a persistent meme on these forums since pretty much the earliest versions of the game.

Edited December 27, 2018 by KSK