The kerbal surname issue....

[capybara]

It's weird how all kerbals have the same surename.... the same surename means that they come from the same family... and all new kerbals have the same surname... so does that mean incest is legal on kerbin?!?!?

[tajwo]

31 minutes ago, capybara said:

It's weird how all kerbals have the same surename....

I don't think that.. I have a headcanon that's been bouncing around my head for the last month. The "last name" Kerman is useless, the last one or two syllables in the "first name" make up the actual last name. for example, "Linbas", "Thompely". There are exceptions, some Kerbals have names that do not respect this guideline (any name that is not randomly generated....)

32 minutes ago, capybara said:

so does that mean incest is legal on kerbin?!?!?

How could you be so sure? They're aliens... BUT they do look very similar (understatement). Maybe it's just cloning. incest doesn't work like that

[Richmountain112]

I'm pretty sure that incest is both legal and encouraged on Kerbin.

[Rutabaga22]

16 minutes ago, Richmountain112 said:

I'm pretty sure that incest is both legal and encouraged on Kerbin.

 

14 hours ago, capybara said:

It's weird how all kerbals have the same surename.... the same surename means that they come from the same family... and all new kerbals have the same surname... so does that mean incest is legal on kerbin?!?!?

I honestly believe the kerbals reproduce via budding. Kerbals just grow "Sprouts" that are taken off medically, then grown.
This is the headcanon that inspired this suggestion:

 

[Zaffre]

Incest? Nonsense. Kerbals reproduce through spores.

[K^2]

There is a well known phenomenon of surname extinction. There is a random fluctuation of more or fewer people ending up with a given surname with every generation, but once a particular surname goes extinct, without someone just legally changing their name, it can't be brought back. Over time, fewer and fewer surnames remain. This process can be faster or slower depending on cultural norms associated with how surnames are passed to new generations, and it generally takes a really long time, but it is a process that exists. Can it be the cause of kerbals having the same surname? It's hard to tell. We can look at human civilizations for some examples. While most Western civilizations have relatively recent surnames, In China, surnames go about a thousand years back, and 22% of China's population share just 3 surnames. Here's a video that gives an overview.

So how long would it take for all of us to have the same surname? Well, if we take the patrilinear tradition as an example, we don't actually have to guess. There is a concept in genetics of Y-chromosomal Adam, a patrilinear ancestor of absolutely every human on Earth. Whoever you are, you are a child of a son, of a son, of a son... of that person. And while it's hard to be precise, based on mutations on Y-chromosome across the population, it is estimated that the most recent such ancestor has lived as recently as 160,000 years ago or as late as 300,000 years ago. If humanity has invented a concept of surnames all the way back then, stuck to it, and has insisted on strictly passing surnames father to child, we'd all be guaranteed to have the same surname.

This is partially the case because the population of humans has been very small, possibly as few as tends of thousands, at one point in time. That was way before any modern surnames existed, so it couldn't impact us, but if we imagine Kerbal civilization to be very ancient, and that they've had some sort of a global catastrophe at some point in the past where their population has been reduced, or if it never exploded in the first place for whatever reason, it is entirely possible that they had a natural extinction of all but one surnames as the result. And, of course, this is all assuming their naming traditions are anything like ours to begin with.

[theJesuit]

On 10/23/2022 at 1:18 AM, tajwo said:

I don't think that.. I have a headcanon that's been bouncing around my head for the last month. The "last name" Kerman is useless, the last one or two syllables in the "first name" make up the actual last name. for example, "Linbas", "Thompely". There are exceptions, some Kerbals have names that do not respect this guideline (any name that is not randomly generated....)

How could you be so sure? They're aliens... BUT they do look very similar (understatement). Maybe it's just cloning. incest doesn't work like that

My headcanon is that they their surname and given name is back to front.  This means that Jebediah is actually is family name, inherited by countless offspring who all have the same given name of kerman.  I guess the males inherit a father's name, the women, their mother's.

Everyone having the same given name seems vwry kerbal really.

[darthgently]

Kerbal civilization is a giant cloning slime mold.  I mean that in a good way

[Felsmak]

The Kerbals having the same surname doesn't have to mean they're related to each other.  It could be some cultural thing where they just decided that everyone was going to be called Kerman for some reason. Perhaps they did it to make everyone equal. In a world where everyone works in the aerospace industry, there's no reason for anyone to feel superior or inferior because of their surname.

[swjr-swis]

12 minutes ago, Felsmak said:

there's no reason for anyone to feel superior or inferior because of their surname.

Indeed.

We have the BadS attribute for that.

[jimmymcgoochie]

“Kerman” doesn’t have to be a surname- it could be an indicator of social hierarchy, an honorific title gained by e.g. completing a rite of passage, or a way to distinguish themselves from other related but distinct species or subspecies which co-inhabit Kerbin but which are unsuited to spaceflight.

Maybe the myriad workers in the VAB, SPH and R&D aren’t called Kerman and only those who qualify as astronauts or reach leadership positions earn the right to do so. Maybe Kerbals in other areas have different surnames but the Space Centre only hires locally. Maybe Kerbals are in a symbiotic relationship with semi-sentient trees and the term “Kerman” merely indicates that a given individual lives apart from said trees rather than around them.*

* If you haven’t already, read this: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/30718-first-flight-epilogue-and-last-thoughts/#comment-408807 and be amazed at the worldbuilding and storytelling that can come just from this interpretation of “Kerman”.

 

[Mahnarch]

Maybe 'Kerman' is like saying 'Doctor'.

 

You have to study at Kerbal University and earn your 'Kerman' before you can get into the space program.

And, on Kerbin, 'Kerman' replaces your birth surname.