History Main / HumansByAnyOtherName

* In ''Film/{{Willow}}'', humans are referred to as "Daikini", the Daikinis are actually minor Buddhist deities in Buddhist cosmology similar to the Valkiries. Considering that Lucas is Buddhist is no brainer how he heard the name.

* In ''Franchise/StarTrek'', most species have a name for the species in Federation Standard (English), which is usually derived from the Federation Standard name for their planet. (Bajorans from Bajor, Vulcans from Vulcan; in an aversion, Klingons from Qo'noS (prnonounced Kronos)). However, they also usually have a name for people from any particular planet. So a member of any species that was raised on Earth would be an Earthling, or on Bajor would be a Bajoran & so on. However, all species have at least one language of their own, which has a different name for their species that may have nothing to do with their name for their home planet. For example, in Imperial Standard Klingon (The Klingon language used by the Imperial Council, that can be learned at the Klingon Language Institute in RealLife) Klingon = tlhIngan. But their homeworld is called Qo'noS. Presumably the English word 'Klingon' was just a bad Human pronunciation at first.

** At least once, in [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original series]], a Romulan referred to humans as "Terrans". Additionally, in the MirrorUniverse (except in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''), all humans are called Terrans.[[note]]The first use of the term "Terran" and "Terran Empire" was in ''Series/DeepSpaceNine'', later retconned in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' and ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'', thing is it became so popular that is often forgot that in the episode "Mirror, Mirror" TheEmpire is never named.[[/note]]

* 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.

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

* In ''Videogame/PillarsOfEternity'' humans are referred to as "Folk".

* In ''Anime/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".]]
* ''Manga/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.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', the Eldar race refers to humans as "Mon-keigh" (this being the eldar word meaning 'inferior', not to mention one of the [[SonOfAnApe least subtle]] puns ever). The Tau race use the base word "Gue" for humans, and distinguish between allies and enemies with "Gue'vesa" or "Gue'la" respectively.[[note]]The latter being another incredibly unsubtle pun, derived from a Chinese word for foreigners.[[/note]] The remaining species of the universe (Orks, Necrons and Tyranids) refer to humans as "'[[{{Funetik Aksent}} umies]]", "[[CallAHumanAMeatbag the living]]", and "[[HordeOfAlienLocusts}} dinner]]", respectively.

** There was some kind of relationship between the Alterans, a.k.a. the Ancients, a.k.a. the {{Precursors}}, and the Romans. It's hard to see exactly what that relationship was - the Alterans are literally millions of years old, and had long since become EnergyBeings governed by a [[AlienNonInterferenceClause noninterference doctrine]] by the time the city of Rome was founded - but the similarity between "tau'ri" and "terran" was not the only Latin-like alien word used on the show.

* Though there is no Earth in ''Franchise/StarWars'', most humans are referred to by their planet of origin -- Corellians from Corellia, Coruscanti from Coruscant, Naboo from Naboo and so on. Collectively, they are called humans though however.

* Inverted in ''LightNovel/CatPlanetCuties''. The [[CatGirl Catians]] are so [[RubberForeheadAliens insanely similar]] to humans (having a genetic difference of only [[OnlyPointTwoPercentDifferent 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 Guatuso Mythology, the gods endearingly refer to humans as "our curassows" (Crax Rubra), since this is their favorite bird.

* In Guatusa Mythology, the gods endearingly refer to humans as "our curassows" (Crax Rubra), since this is their favorite bird.

* In Guatusa Mythology, the gods endearingly refer to humans as Curassows (Crax Rubra), since this is their favorite bird.

* In Guatusa Mythology, the gods endearingly refer to humans as Cussarows (Crax Rubra), since this is their favorite bird.

** In one his letters, Tolkien pointed out that Elves and Men being able to interbreed means that they must be the same species. While unstated in that letter, this logic must also mean that the Orcs and Men are the same species - the Uruk-hai are, after all, HalfHumanHybrids. Another letter has him noting that the Hobbits are an evolutionary off-shoot of Men. Taken together, this suggests the reason that he doesn't call Men "human" is that ''all'' of the main races are humans, and Men refers specifically to the branch of humans that survived to the modern day (this also makes Tolkien one of the few sci-fi/fantasy authors to use the term "race" correctly; the FiveRaces are in fact different races of the same species).

[[quoteright:280:[[Webcomic/CyanideAndHappiness https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/untitled_37_7.png]]]]

* Played with in the ''Literature/{{Dragaera}}'' books: both the actual humans ("Easterners") and the [[OurElvesAreBetter basically-elves]] ("Dragaerans") refer to themselves as human and the other group as the alternate name. In some places outside of the Dragaeran Empire, humans call Dragaerans "elfs," and Dragaerans call humans "dwarfs."

* In the ''Literature/TairenSoul'' series the word that isn't used is ''human'' or even ''Man''. Instead they call the humans by their nation's name or [[OurElvesAreBetter elves and fey]] call them ''mortals''.

* In ''VideoGame/GuildWars: Eye of the North'', the Asura use the pejorative term "bookah" for humans. In a cutscene, the term is revealed to refer to a violent, clumsy, stupid, bellowing imaginary creature used to frighten Asura children. This has somewhat expanded to cover any race they see as less intelligent than the Asura, meaning every other race.

* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', the [[OurElvesAreDifferent elves]] (particularly the Dalish) refer to humans as shemlen. The shorter term "shem" is used in a derogatory manner (not surprising, given what humans did to them). "Shemlen" means "quickling" or "quick children", as the Dalish believe that their ancestors used to live for centuries. Additionally, the word "Qunari" actually refers to a culture (it literally means "people of the Qun", Qun being their religion/way of life) not a race. The race the original Qunari belong to is technically called "Kossith", though the people who take the time to distinguish between Kossith and Qunari are extremely few and far between, even among the Qunari. Even this isn't consistent; nobody in-universe is quite sure whether Kossith was a name for the race or a different political or religious group that the Qunari broke off from, and other members of the race who don't follow the Qun reject it's claim on the term and call themselves "qunari" as though it were a race name.

* ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': Creator/JRRTolkien refers to humans in all his Middle Earth's stories as Men (with capital "m") as a counterpart to Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Hobbits among others. This is carried out to the film adaptations both animated and live action and is probably a CallBack to classic fantasy literature as the term human wasn't common in classic mythology or literature.

* ''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. Whether normal round-eared humans are distinct from Hylians as a species is vague at best, considered a separate race in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' but not in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' or ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames''. In short, whether Hylians count as a case of this or not depends on the game.

* In ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'', humans and miniaturized Zentradi are known as "Microns" ("Micronians" in ''{{Anime/Robotech}}''), although this is more to do with their size than their race.

* The [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Kantri]] of {{Literature/Tales of Kolmar}} call humanity "Gedri", [[YouAreTheTranslatedForeignWord Silent Ones]], because humans [[spoiler: mostly]] can't use or hear the psychic "truespeech" that Kantri have as well as vocal speech.

** There was some kind of relationship between the Alterans, a.k.a. the Ancients, a.k.a. the {{Precursors}}, and the Romans. It's hard to see exactly what that relationship was - the Alterans are literally millions of years old, and had long since become {{Energy Beings}} governed by a [[AlienNonInterferenceClause noninterference doctrine]] by the time the city of Rome was founded - but the similarity between "tau'ri" and "terran" was not the only Latin-like alien word used on the show.

** On at least one occasion, a Klingon has been heard referring to his homeworld as Kling. Of course, Star Trek suffers massively from {{CanonDiscontinuity}}. And, it's also been said that the original Klingon Homeworld was destroyed, and Qo'noS is the "new" Klingon Homeworld.

* In the earlier Creator/GerryAnderson show ''Series/{{Stingray 1964}}'', various sea-dwelling uglies would call humans "Terraneans", since we come from land (terrain).

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', the Eldar race refers to humans as "Mon-keigh" (this being the eldar word meaning 'inferior', not to mention one of the [[{{Son Of An Ape}} least subtle]] puns ever). The Tau race use the base word "Gue" for humans, and distinguish between allies and enemies with "Gue'vesa" or "Gue'la" respectively.[[note]]The latter being another incredibly unsubtle pun, derived from a Chinese word for foreigners.[[/note]] The remaining species of the universe (Orks, Necrons and Tyranids) refer to humans as "'[[{{Funetik Aksent}} umies]]", "[[{{Call A Human A Meatbag}} the living]]", and "[[{{Horde Of Alien Locusts}} dinner]]", respectively.

* The two major human factions in the ''{{Videogame/X}}-Universe'' series are called the Argon and the [[PlanetTerra Terrans]]. The Argon Federation is a LostColony that was cut off from Earth several hundred years before the games take place, and is [[NamedAfterSomebodyFamous named after its first leader]], Nathan ''R. Gunne''. The Earth State (commonly just called "Terrans") is the continuation of Earth's government, and controls the Solar System. Members of the minor factions like the [[ActualPacifist Goners]], [[LostColony Free State of Solara]], and the [[AllThereInTheManual Hatikvah Free League]] are generally just called humans.

A subtrope of this is PlanetTerra and CallARabbitASmeerp.

A subtrope of this is PlanetTerra.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' refers to humans as "Hyur."

* It's worth bearing in mind that there are several technical words for "beings closely taxonomically related to humans". "Hominid" used to mean "humans and their extinct relatives", but since ScienceMarchesOn and it's found out that classifying humans as a special branch within the primate order made no scientific sense, according to Wiki/TheOtherWiki [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae "hominids"]] now refer to all great apes (humans, chimps, gorillas, and orangutans). [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominini "Hominin"]] is sometimes used as a modern alternative, but taxonomically speaking, it includes both humans and chimps. TheMoreYouKnow...
** The term ''humanoid'' refers to anything relatively human-shaped (bipedal, upright, two arms, one head), including RidiculouslyHumanRobots, RubberForeheadAliens, and denizens of the UncannyValley. Sentience and genetic relation to humankind are not required.

* It's worth bearing in mind that there are several technical words for "beings closely taxonomically related to humans". ''Hominid'' used to mean "humans and their extinct relatives", but according to Wiki/TheOtherWiki the modern term for this is ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominini hominin]]''; ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominid hominid]]'' now properly includes the great apes. TheMoreYouKnow...

* Most ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games refer to humans as humans, but ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' call them Humes. And the four tribes of the ''Crystal Chronicles'' games include human-looking Clavats and Selkies (and Lilties, if you allow for their flower-like hair).