History Main / HumansByAnyOtherName

Animal characters will also often refer to humans by something besides "human", even in works where other animals have their standard names. For quadrupeds, it's particularly common for describe humans by their bipedalism, such as using "two-legged".

* In ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'', in the original Japanese, humans are written with the kanji for "human", but the pronounciation guide says "tall-man" in English. The official English translation uses the latter. They're also nicknamed "long legs", particularly by shorter races like the dwarves. In the translation, the term "human" is instead used to refer to the sapient races as a whole.

* ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' series almost always have AbsentAliens, but has a variant in calling humans "Earthnoid" or "Spacenoid" depending on if they grew up on Earth or a space colony. In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamTheWitchFromMercury'', the equivalent terms are "Earthian" and "Spacian".

''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' is an odd case. Hylians are variously the only humans, not humans, or just one of a few races of humans. For example, in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'', ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'', and some games that have come out since, humans are broken up into races or tribes that include Hylians, Gerudo, Sheikah, and maybe some others. Other times, they're the ''only'' humans in the game. Normal round-eared humans appear in some games but not in others, and whether they're distinct from Hylians as a species is vague at best, although they do not seem native to Hyrule; games set outside of it, such as the Oracle duology and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening Link's Awakening]]'', have Link as a lone pointy-eared person in a cast of fully round-eared ones, while ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'' has humans with round ears in Ordona and ones with pointed ears everywhere else; at no point in any of these games, however, are humans and Hylians explicitly identified as separate races.

* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' is an odd case. Hylians are variously the only humans, not humans, or just one of a few races of humans. For example, in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', and some games that have come out since, humans are broken up into races or tribes that include Hylians, Gerudo, Sheikah, and maybe some others. Other times, they're the ''only'' humans in the game. Normal round-eared humans appear in some games but not in others, and whether they're distinct from Hylians as a species is vague at best, although they do not seem native to Hyrule; games set outside of it, such as the Oracle duology and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'', have Link as a lone pointy-eared person in a cast of fully round-eared ones, while ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' has humans with round ears in Ordona and ones with pointed ears everywhere else; at no point in any of these games, however, are humans and Hylians explicitly identified as separate races.

[[quoteright:256:[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fftactics_hume.png]]]]

* A variant in ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'', the term "Terragen" is used to denote anything with an ancestry going back to Earth. This includes humans, {{Uplifted Animal}}s, AI's, machines, virtual minds, and everything in between. Actual ''homo sapiens sapiens'' make up a little less than 1/20th of a percent of the population of the Terragen civilization, and are referred to as "baselines". Genetically engineered variants tend to be known collectively as "hu".

* Similarly to the examples for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' and ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV XIV]]'', humans in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' are known as Homs. The only difference is apparently that Homs need ether to survive.

** Even so, the adjective "human" is still in use.
** [[spoiler:At the very end of the game we do meet two humans and learn there IS a difference between them and Homs]]

* "Terran" (from the Latin ''Terra'', "Earth") is probably the most popular choice by far, which crept into all kinds of settings, from ''Franchise/StarshipTroopers'' to ''Series/BlakesSeven'' to ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'', along with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terran other examples.]] It probably got popular because it sounds like [[PlanetOfHats what you might call some alien race]], and, at some point, wasn't immediately recognisable as "Earth", so it feels "alien". "Terran" also [[RuleofCool sounds cooler]] than "Human".

* In ''Videogame/StarCraft'' the term "terran" (lowercase even!) is used as a substitute in nearly all instances to describe humanity, even if the ones speaking are themselves humans. This is particularly strange since Earth (Terra) isn't even really a factor for most of the game. Oddly enough Earth is never actually referred to as Terra.
* Interestingly, when contact is re-established with Earth in the expansion for the first game, the United Earth Directorate fairly consistantly refer to themselves as humans and humanity, rather than as terrans!
** The naming convention has been applied for the Zerg in ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' (at first it may seem like a retroactive application, but the planet had in fact already been mentioned in the lore section of the manual for the first game): they come from Planet Zerus (''not'' {{Zeerust}}), and to tell the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Zerus-zerg]] from [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Overmind-zerg]], the from-Zerus ones are called "Primal Zerg". Neat, huh?

* When a Silicate (man-made rebel AI androids helping the alien enemies) is being interrogated in ''Series/SpaceAboveAndBeyond'', he reveals that the enemy's nickname for humans translates roughly as "red stink things". Of course, our nickname for them is "chiggers" so...

* When a traitor to the human race is being interrogated in ''Series/SpaceAboveAndBeyond'', he reveals that the enemy's nickname for humans translates roughly as "red stink things". Of course, our nickname for them is "chiggers" so...

* Inverted in ''LightNovel/CatPlanetCuties''. The [[CatGirl Catians]] are so [[RubberForeheadAliens insanely similar]] to humans (having a genetic difference of only 0.00001%), that they not only speak our language but call their home planet Earth and themselves Earthlings. Upon encountering our Earth, they voluntarily changed their name so as to avoid confusion.

* In ''LightNovel/NoGameNoLife'', humans are the 16th race of the Exceed, called "Imanity". They're the lowest of the Exceed, having no outstanding physical capabilities or inclination towards magic. [[spoiler: It's later revealed that Imanity was not one of the Exceed originally, but instead were elevated to such status by Tet when he ascended to One True God. The is derived from combining the words for "immunity" and "humanity".]]
* ''LightNovel/Overlord2012'': Since every member of Nazarick is of a nonhuman species, their terms for humans tend to be less than flattering. Narberal in particular refers to every human she talks to as some species of insect/arachnid/small insignificant lifeform, and has yet to use the same one twice.

* ''VideoGame/ConquestFrontierWars'' gives us the Terrans and it's only a matter of time before the bug aliens declare a [[IncrediblyLamePun war on Terra]] (sorry).

* ''Manga/SgtFrog'' gives us the title of ''Pekoponjin'', because they refer to Earth as "Pekopon". In the manga it was "Pokopen", a rather nasty Japanese word for the Chinese, which was changed for obvious reasons.

In SpeculativeFiction, the word "human" can seem out of place in a universe where every other species is named after their homeworld (unless, of course, [[http://jbr.me.uk/lingo.html they come from Humus]]). As a consequence of this, or perhaps just to sound "exotic", alien cultures often come up with their own monikers for PunyEarthlings. Indeed, the word "Earthling" itself is an example, and it also shows that most of the time, oddly enough, they name humans after our own terms for our planet and its surroundings, rather than whatever Earth or the Sun is named in ''their'' language.

* In ''Franchise/DragonBall'', "ningen" (Japanese for human) is treated as more or less synonymous with "mortal"; it refers to any intelligent life form that is not a [[PhysicalGod god]]. "Chikyuujin" (earthling) can be used to narrow it down a bit more, but this category also includes sapient {{Beast M|an}}en and HalfHumanHybrids. I.e. the setting doesn't appear to ''have'' a term directly equivalent to "human" as we would understand it, at least not in casual speech.