40

I'm writing a fiction where inhabitants live on the Moon, so I want a name for them. I know that 'venusian' means 'of or relating to the planet Venus', 'martian' means 'of or relating to the planet Mars or its hypothetical inhabitants' and so on.

But, after having observed that 'moonian' is not a word, I wonder as to whether there is a term meaning 'of or relating to the Moon or its hypothetical inhabitants'.

herisson
  • 81,803
  • 3
    how about aliens? ;-) – Jim Sep 19 '13 at 07:47
  • 1
    A fun question, but surely also'opinion based'? – Roaring Fish Sep 19 '13 at 07:57
  • I like mooners... Hmm, maybe not. – iterums Sep 19 '13 at 08:51
  • 1
    I think it depends on the context. Is it the 'official name' of the people (Lunarians might fit this), a derogatory nickname given by the people (Moonies perhaps), or a nickname given by the Moon-dwellers to describe themselves, which will make them sound good (so perhaps Moonwalkers)? – benshepherd Sep 19 '13 at 10:19
  • Sun moon myungs? – Blessed Geek Sep 19 '13 at 10:41
  • 1
    There cannot be a right answer to this question. It's purely subjective, besides the story is fictional and hence the name for the inhabitants can be too. JK Rowland leads the way, and so did Tolkien. I doubt even the word, Smurfs existed before the cartoon was created, but it caught on! :) – Mari-Lou A Sep 19 '13 at 10:50
  • 16
    Perhaps lunatics or loonies for short. What? Those are already taken? Maybe moonmen, assuming that there is only one gender. – bib Sep 19 '13 at 12:13
  • Or you can do it by dropping a syllable from "Luna", making Loon(s). – Izkata Sep 19 '13 at 12:38
  • 2
    @Mari-LouA makes a good point - almost every suggestion here already has some sort of meaning, that lunar inhabitants might not want to associate themselves with. The answer, should an author come up with something good, might come out of nowhere - for example, to borrow the Japanese suffix for "person of ___", we could end up with "moonjin" or "lunajin" (like bib's suggestion of "moonmen" but not male-oriented). – Izkata Sep 19 '13 at 12:44
  • 3
    There's nothing nypothetical about the Mooninites. – Kyle Hale Sep 19 '13 at 14:39
  • 5
    They call themselves the mooninites. – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Sep 19 '13 at 16:10
  • While your questions are interesting, they'd be better with inclusion of your research which should show the words that are used to relate to the moon. Please include your research in your questions! :-) – Kristina Lopez Sep 19 '13 at 17:49
  • Are these inhabitants native, or colonists? – user867 Sep 20 '13 at 07:14
  • @user867, native. –  Sep 20 '13 at 07:15
  • @bib loonies is a term used by Heinlein among others (I think PKD also used it at times), as slang for people living on the moon. – jwenting Sep 20 '13 at 08:19
  • @BlueRaja-DannyPflughoeft, we called their place Moon, and they called themselves Mooninites? sounds unlikely. – njzk2 Jul 16 '15 at 18:32

17 Answers17

75

My choice would be Lunarian—employing the same Latin roots as Martian and Venerian, using the same way to build the word.

It is actually already existing term as per Marriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lunarian).

Mykola
  • 979
36

H.G.Wells, in The First Men In The Moon, referred to the inhabitants of the moon as selenites, but the name doesn't seem to have caught on. The only definition I can find for the word in a dictionary refers to a kind of gypsum.

Brian Hooper
  • 36,868
  • 2
    Interestingly, french and spanish exclusively use sélénites and selenitas, respectively. Possibly because the word is several centuries old in those languages. – Angry Lettuce Sep 19 '13 at 12:12
  • 6
    Selenite has caught on among SF writers. Between it and Lunarian I don't think either is strongly dominant. Google Ngrams have the two about on par (the singular Selenite is dominant but that seems to be due to the chemical). – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Sep 19 '13 at 15:10
  • It all depends on whether you want to use the Latin or Greek pantheon. Luna is Latin/Roman, which is the standard for naming Solar System objects to date. Selene is Greek, and yes, selenium has the same origin; the element was named because it had similar properties to the previously-discovered tellurium (for Tellus - Earth). – KeithS Sep 19 '13 at 18:53
  • Jules Verne also used this term in "From Earth to the Moon" and "Around the Moon". Thanks for making me remember how awesome those books are! – Svalorzen Sep 19 '13 at 21:17
  • I've also encountered the term in Georges Méliès' Trip to the Moon (1902), though since the word doesn't appear on screen I don't know if it was applied to those characters at the time. – supercat Jan 09 '18 at 17:46
17

via the Latin Luna, I suggest Lunans

Lunans (Luna: Earth II)

Loonies (from the book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein) - however being loony is considered a little crazy

Lunar is the adjective: "The Lunar inhabitants", but lunatic is an informal term referring to the mentally ill

Lunan will be more readily understandable by anyone not Greek than their Selenite and rolls off the tongue better than Lunarian](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/lunarian) in my opinion :)

Moonies is a pejorative used for the followers of the Unification Church

mplungjan
  • 29,914
  • 1
    +1 for loonies, Heinlein did use it as a pun in the book as well if I remember correctly. – terdon Sep 19 '13 at 17:55
12

Honestly if I were writing about a fictional people that lived on the moon I would take a different approach. What would they call their home? What would they think of the blue giant "moon" hanging in the sky above their planet? If they did not come from the earth then surely they would not call their home planet the moon... Will they have water and grow plants? Technology enough to see the lush planet they cannot reach? I would think they would be green with envy and it would be the focus of their religion and most of their stories. They might speculate about the man in the moon just as we do, and strive for ways to get there. It would likely be considered a utopian planet that could save them from their desolation. Their heaven perhaps. I would choose a name for my home planet in that context I think. Not an answer - just a suggestion. Be creative and make it your own.

John Faulkner
  • 516
  • That's an approach with pedigree, e.g. (Out of the Silent Planet)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Silent_Planet] by CS Lewis, however some term may be needed when introducing these beings, before their own name is known to the reader. – Chris H Sep 19 '13 at 11:11
  • 9
    Earth would not appear to orbit - it would have phases, but remain stationary in the sky. – Random832 Sep 19 '13 at 15:58
  • 1
    I LOVE this answer! It shows up the egocentric way we so automatically think about things. We need to be constantly reminded not to be that way. This is thoughtful, creative, beautiful, and RIGHT. Thanks, John! – John M. Landsberg Sep 19 '13 at 20:48
  • Thanks John! @Random even better! It would always be there, waxing and waning in the sky above them, reminding them of what they don't have. Imagine the religions that would spring forth from that! I could see them performing elaborate rituals. It seems they should be able to make out elements of weather on the earth as well, a swirling atmosphere they lack on their home planet. How they would speculate! I wonder if solar storms that create such vivid light shows on earth might be visible to them through a telescope? and what of those on the dark side? Only rumors of it would reach them. – John Faulkner Sep 19 '13 at 21:43
6

Of or related to the moon is lunar. Perhaps the word lunatic expresses the idea of the moon's inhabitants.

There was an LDS [Mormon] belief that the moon was inhabited, but they simply refer to “the inhabitants of the moon”. At least one commentator, however, calls them moon-men.

Andrew Leach
  • 101,901
5

What about deriving the name from some other property of the Moon?

  • The Moon is in High Earth Orbit -> a heo, two heos (almost similar to the greek word for Sun, helios)
  • Fortnighters - the night on the Moon lasts for, uh, a fortnight :-)
  • Regos, that regolith sticks to just anything
  • Copernicans, if they all live in or originate from the same crater
  • Neils (and Buzzes), in honor of Mr. Armstrong & Mr. Aldrin
  • Farsiders, if they hid from humans there until discovered
Jens
  • 475
  • 1
    That's an interesting idea, it's more similar to what you might expect would arise as slang. "Oh those crazy fortnighters" or "Damn dirty Regos!" – Amory Sep 19 '13 at 14:57
  • I like Regos, as it ties into the structure of the moon, and could be a pejorative from an Earther. – Andrew Neely Sep 19 '13 at 19:37
4

No term currently exists, because we haven't really needed one: the Moon has no inhabitants. Different authors who wrote about people on the Moon tended to coin their own terms, but none have really caught on as standard yet.

The end result is that you get to coin your own term too. If you want to derive from Latin, I'd suggest "Lunans." If you want the word to have Germanic roots instead, "Moonfolk" should work.

I think the Latin derivation has a somewhat more scientific feel, while the Germanic derivation sounds more mythic. Either way, you should pick whatever feels best for your work.

The Spooniest
  • 447
3

Since it is not uncommon to refer to Earth's inhabitants Earthlings, the obvious generalization would be Moonlings. Unfortunately that also seems to be synonymous to lunatic in the meaning of simpleton...

Tobias Kienzler
  • 569
2

I'd say "Moonwalker". It does have some different meanings colloquially and it's the name of a Michael Jackson movie so it might not be that original.

TsSkTo
  • 1,049
2

Continuing the theonymous tradition one could call them Selenians after the Greek moon goddess.

And I don't know how moonling came about to mean lunatic.

According to the dictionaries mooner has been misappropriated in a similar manner. However I don't see a problem with Luner as a general term for your hypothetical moonwalkers.

Edit: In fact according to OED Selenian is extant and means just that - of or pertaining to the moon considered as a world.

Eg. ...we should not select the Moon as a habitation ; and the Selenians, if there be any, must be a peculiar race (courtesy - FumbleFingers)

user49727
  • 9,022
  • 3
  • 25
  • 44
2

I would suggest you to consider Mooners or Moonsters :)

sivi
  • 139
1

In Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", the inhabitants, who are almost all transported convicts or descendents of such, all refer to themselves as "Loonies". In much the same way, I imagine, that Yankees took that pejorative on as a badge of honor, to spite their enemies.

Cyberherbalist
  • 7,556
0

Perhaps if you were looking for a colloquial term/insult/slang for these people I'd go for something like Luny, Looney or Luney. Base on on the Latin origin of Moon and the fact that you might end up insane living on such a barren, desolate place.

Robert English
  • 121
0

I think if there were people living on the moon that we would call them whatever they wanted us to call them.

I think if you are writing the book then your "Moon" people need to have a name for it. The fact is they would have a name for the place they called home. They might not have a clue what Moon/Lunar is.

Name the moon, name your people on the moon, and let them be introduced. If an advanced civilization came to us and lived on the moon we might refer to them as Martians at first but then it would be whatevertheywantustocallthem.

Tom
  • 139
  • 2
    Huh, I was under the impression that we English-speakers historically ignore what the people of a given place call themselves and come up with a name based on our traditional way of referring to the place they're from. – user867 Sep 20 '13 at 07:13
  • 1
    ... not only us English speakers, but all speakers of anything anywhere ever. We don't call people "les français", "die Deutschen", "belorusy" or "ukraintsy", and they don't call us "Englishmen", "Scots" or "Irish". – RegDwigнt Sep 20 '13 at 08:57
  • Yes we English speakers do ignore what people call themselves but something tells me if it were an alien race we would probably use their name or a nickname of their name. – Tom Sep 20 '13 at 15:43
0

Moonman or Moonwoman is the best word to describe

Ken Men
  • 11
-1

They can be called any of Moonian/ Lunarian/ Moonarchs.

Rajesh Paul
  • 99
-1

Lunadens

Lunar + Denizens = Lunadens

Dennis
  • 11