History Main / PunctuationShaker

** ''ComicBook/TheWarlordDC'': Y'Smalla (a villainess who was a relatively late addition to the series) is the only major character with a punctuation mark in their name.

** In the episode [[Recap/FarscapeS02E04CrackersDontMatter Crackers Don't Matter]], Crichton writes up the name [[MonsterOfTheWeek T'raltixx]] for the benefit of his shipmates, despite the fact that (a) no one else on the ship reads English, and (b) no one this side of the Galactic Core would write it like that. Of course, his mind was being affected at the time.

** In the episode ''Recap/FarscapeS02E04CrackersDontMatter Crackers Don't Matter'', Crichton writes up the name [[MonsterOfTheWeek T'raltixx]] for the benefit of his shipmates, despite the fact that (a) no one else on the ship reads English, and (b) no one this side of the Galactic Core would write it like that. Of course, his mind was being affected at the time.

** In the episode ''Recap/FarscapeS02E04CrackersDontMatter'', Crichton writes up the name [[MonsterOfTheWeek T'raltixx]] for the benefit of his shipmates, despite the fact that (a) no one else on the ship reads English, and (b) no one this side of the Galactic Core would write it like that. Of course, his mind was being affected at the time.

** In the episode [[Recap/FarscapeS02E04CrackersDontMatter]], Crichton writes up the name [[MonsterOfTheWeek T'raltixx]] for the benefit of his shipmates, despite the fact that (a) no one else on the ship reads English, and (b) no one this side of the Galactic Core would write it like that. Of course, his mind was being affected at the time.

** In the episode "[[Recap/FarscapeS02E04CrackersDontMatter]]", Crichton writes up the name [[MonsterOfTheWeek T'raltixx]] for the benefit of his shipmates, despite the fact that (a) no one else on the ship reads English, and (b) no one this side of the Galactic Core would write it like that. Of course, his mind was being affected at the time.

* In ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', Crichton writes up the name T'raltixx for the benefit of his shipmates, despite the fact that (a) no one else on the ship reads English, and (b) no one this side of the Galactic Core would write it like that. Of course, his mind was being affected at the time.

** In Duane's ''Literature/Rihannsu'' books, the Romulan language has many apostrophes and hyphens scattered throughout its words, often used to connect words as in English compounds or to add a prefix or suffix to a root word. Romulan names also contain hyphens and apostrophes, though there is a regular pattern in the naming system: Ael i-Mhiessan t'Rllaillieu is Ael from Mhiessan of House Rllaillieu, and Lai i-Ramnau tr'Ehhelih is Lai from Ramnau of House Ehhelih.

** In Duane's ''[[Literature/Rihannsu]]'' books, the Romulan language has many apostrophes and hyphens scattered throughout its words, often used to connect words as in English compounds or to add a prefix or suffix to a root word. Romulan names also contain hyphens and apostrophes, though there is a regular pattern in the naming system: Ael i-Mhiessan t'Rllaillieu is Ael from Mhiessan of House Rllaillieu, and Lai i-Ramnau tr'Ehhelih is Lai from Ramnau of House Ehhelih.

*** A one-shot race of pre-human NeglectfulPrecursors were called the H'v'lr'ni.
*** In ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' 90's continuity, Mon-El was worshiped by most of the galaxy for founding most of the [[PlanetOfHats Planets of Hats]] the Legionnaires came from back in the twentieth century. In order to avoid getting crazy reactions wherever he went, he changed his costume slightly and took the codename M'onel.

* In ''Literature/StarTrekTitan'', we have the character of K'chak'!'op. The "!" represents a click created (in humans, anyway) by smacking the tongue against the roof of the mouth, as in several real languages. The entire name is an approximation anyway, of the clicks and pops that K'chak'!'op's people use to communicate. Her real name is basically "click/puff of air'click/tongue to roof of mouth click/pop". No wonder the human characters tend to use the nickname "Chaka".

** In older works, you'll occasionally see the ''Mc'' or ''Mac'' in Scottish/Irish names replaced with ''M’'' -- one prominent example being ''M’Turk'' from Kipling's ''Literature/StalkyAndCo''

** Aside from the species named Pak'ma'ra and the Shadow homeworld of Z'ha'dum, especially the Narn seem to like apostrophes: G'Kar, G'Quan, Ta'Lon, Kha'Ri, et al. In the case of the Narns, the apostrophe seems to represent the joining of a compound word -- for example, Na'Toth's father's name is Shak'Toth. Also, the Pak'ma'ra homeworld is called Pak'ma, which suggests a similar function.

** [[GenkiGirl Tendi]] (an Orion) has the first name D'Vana, and she works with [[DrJerk Dr. T'Ana]], a Caitan. Another episode reveals that Tendi has a cousin named D'onni.

* In ''WebVideo/MonsterFactory'', Griffin and Justin decide to make a creature to replace dogs in ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}''. They initially call it "Jaam", but decide that's too boring and redub their creation "Ja'am"(pronounced Jah-ahm).

* In ''WebVideo/MonsterFactory'', Griffin and Justin decide to make a creature to replace dogs in ''Spore''. They initially call it "Jaam", but decide that's too boring and redub it "Jaa'm" (pronounced Jah-ahm).

This trope may not apply when punctuation or tongue-clicks are a natural part of the language the story is written in; linguistics may even treat them as unique letters in their own right. Most commonly, though, no actual purpose for these marks ever crystallizes; they serve merely as a form of visual seasoning that may not ever be acknowledged in actual pronunciation. In other languages, an apostrophe usually means a glottal stop (we mean ''glo'al''), an aspirated consonant, such as in Mandarin Chinese names Latinized in Wade-Giles (see examples below in the "Real Life" section), or ejectives, which English speakers would probably be most familiar with as "beatboxing sounds", and ''do'' differ in pronunciation from unapostrophized text.

* The AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho stories feature a villain named "[[SpellMyNameWithAThe the]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Kro'ka]]", in whose name the apostrophe seems to represent a subtle glottal stop. There's also an alien companion [[MyNaymeIs whose nayme is]] C'rizz. It's pronounced like "Carys", a legitimate Welsh name it's sometimes (understandably) misspelled as. He's also got a [[spoiler:deceased]] girlfriend named L'da, in whose name the apostrophe represents the bit where there's sort of a pause or maybe a schwa to make up for the effects of her species' tragic vowel deficiency.[[note]]One imagines her and C'rizz huddled together of an evening, sheltering in the combined warmth of the two vowels they have between the pair of them and struggling to pronounce each other's names...[[/note]]

*** Diana's a sister ComicBook/{{Nubia}}'s name was changed to Nu'bia in the ComicBook/PostCrisis continuity.

*** "ComicBook/SupermanVsMuhammadAli": The Scrubb alies use apostrophes. His Emperor is named Rat'Lar, and his best soldier is called Hun'Ya.

** Another of Marvel's recurring alien races also likes apostrophes in their names, e. g. former empress R'klll and K'lrt, better known as the Super-Skrull. Marvel also has another alien race called the Z'nox and a race of demons called the N'garai.
** On Marvel Earth, apostrophes abound in African settings, e. g. the ComicBook/BlackPanther is T'challa, son of T'chaka, while his enemy the White Gorilla is M'baku. ComicBook/{{Storm|MarvelComics}}'s Kenyan mother was called N'daré.

* ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'': As in the comics, apostrophes are common with masculine Wakandan names: T'Chaka, T'Challa, M'Baku, W'Kabi, N'Jobu, N'Jadaka... Partly justified as apostrophes translitterate implosive consonants which occurs frequently in sub-saharian languages.

* In the ''Literature/DarkHunters'' series by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Dream Hunters are assigned an honorific depending on their role. These honorifics take the form of "M'" for enforcers and judges, "V'" for those who protect humans, and "D'" for those which protect gods and immortals. The honorific is placed at the front of the name. Most characters don't know this however, so will simply treat it as a normal name (M'Adoc pronounced Madoc for example). The name need not start with a vowel (as seen with D'Ravyk) and the honorific may be ignored entirely (Leta, Delphine).

** The People have three exclamation-marked letters in their language, !X, !C and !Q. They are at least more than cosmetic -- they represent three different click sounds, as used in real human languages. The novel which introduces them, ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresTheAlsoPeople The Also People]]'', has a pronunciation guide in the front, for those readers who can be bothered. Their names also use random capitals, which don't seem to mean anything particular.

** The pronunciation guide says that the apostrophes are added to words that would mean more or less the same thing without them; they're pronounced as an elongation of an adjacent syllable, and are added as a mark of respect or significance.
** One elf is named Blödhgarm, the pronounciation of which ("BLAWD-garm") doesn't seem very different from if it had just been spelled Blodhgarm.

* In the Russian novel ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'', [[{{Cyborg}} Meklar]] names have some strange punctuation marks, when written out in the novel, despite the race mainly communicating in binary among themselves, such as "T/san" and "Kas/s/is". No explanation of what a slash is supposed to indicate.

** The LizardFolk K'Chain Che'Malle and their SlaveRace, the K'Chain Nah'ruk, are, well, LizardFolk. Almost all of their names seen in the series include an apostrophe: Sag'Churok, Gu'Rull, Gunth'an Acyl, Bre'nigan, etc. And since they have no spoken language, those probably don't hinder them at communicating, anyway.

* Proving that the trope is OlderThanRadio, Mark Twain relates in ''The Private History of a Campaign That Failed'' the instance of a Confederate militiaman who changed his name from the plebeian Dunlap to the nobler, more aristocratic-sounding d'Unlap. This proved to be inadequate, however, because people still pronounced his name with the emphasis on the first syllable. So "the ass with the French name" took things one step further.

* ''Literature/SnowCrash'' has a character named [=Da5id=]. The name is probably pronounced the same as "David", since in Roman numerals a V is equivalent to a 5.

** Apostrophes are common in the names of Twi'lek characters in the expanded universe, because even slight changes in pronunciation result in very different meanings in the Rytholean language. Bib Fortuna, for instance, used to be Bibfort'una, Una being his clan name, later stripped from him because he sold members of his own clan into slavery. Splitting it in the exact manner that apparently creates the most unflattering possible meaning. In the ''Literature/XWingSeries'', Wedge Antilles, upon arrival on their homeworld, finds himself called [[YouAreTheTranslatedForeignWord Wedgean'tilles]], which meant "[[StellarName slayer of stars]]", because as [[ThisIsMyNameOnForeign Wedge'antilles]] his name meant something like "so foul a rancor would be sick".

** In this case, the ! is a "click" as in several African Languages. Haldeman noted in a collection that the only person to get it right unprompted was one of his "handlers" on a visit to the Soviet Union (doubly odd, because the magazine the story appeared in was banned in the USSR).

** In Appendix E to ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', Creator/JRRTolkien explains that, while the acute and circumflex marks do mean something (they mark a vowel as long), which one he used depended (mostly) on how "alien" he wanted the names to look: [[OurElvesAreDifferent Elvish languages]] get to use the acute accent (é) but everyone else has to use the circumflex accent (ê). He used the letter [[XtremeKoolLetterz K]] to similar effect, since in most of his languages it's redundant because C is always hard.
** Tolkien uses "k" for the languages of Dwarves, Orcs and some humans -- in particular Westron and its ancestor Adûnaic. Because of the translation convention of Modern English for Westron and Old English for the language of the Rohirrim, humans get to use "c" as well, though.
** Many Quenya words end in ''ë'' to remind readers that the ''e'' is '''not''' silent as in English. The sequence ''ëa'' (or ''Eä'' when capitalized) occurs in a few names, like Fëanor (maker of the Silmarilli) and Eärendil (Elrond's father), to indicate that the E and A are separate vowels. (Compare archaic English spellings like ''coöperate''; the same is seen in a few Greek names like ''Boötes'', a constellation.) The dots were left away in the German translation, however, since in german, ä would be pronounced differently. In the Swedish translation, the dots were left ''in'', even though they changed pronounciation and weren't necessary since a Swedish reader would read the wowels as separate in any case. It's possible that after the controversy caused by the Swedish translator of ''[=LotR=]'' (Creator/AkeOhlmarks) changing the text far more than necessary, the publisher and the new translator wanted to avoid changing ''anything'', including diacritics, in the text of ''The Silmarillion''.

* In Piers Anthony's ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'' books, any given demon's name is the name of the world/planet which is their territory, with some mathematical notation mixed in -- for example, X(A/N)^TH. Precisely what notation is used appears to be some kind of indicator of status.
* In the second ''Literature/YoungWizards'' book, ''Deep Wizardry'', a number of the characters are whales and as such have names meant to mimic the cadences of whalesong. When Kit and Nita transform into whales, their names are given similar treatment, and are referred to as K!t and H'Neeeet.

** Aside from the species named Pak'ma'ra and the Shadow home world of Z'ha'dum, especially the Narn seem to like apostrophes: G'Kar, G'Quan, Ta'Lon, Kha'Ri, et al. In the case of the Narns, the apostrophe seems to represent the joining of a compound word -- for example, Na'Toth's father's name is Shak'Toth. Also, the Pak'ma'ra homeworld is called Pak'ma, which suggests a similar function.

* D'Anna Biers is the only character in ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' with an apostrophe name. The apostrophe indicates a glottal stop but it is somewhat subtle , causing some viewers to hear her name as Diana or Deanna.

** The main antagonist race (for the first six or seven seasons) were called Goa'uld. How this was pronounced varied, usually depending on who was talking. A few common versions were [ˈgoʊ̭.uːld], [ˈguːə.uːld] and for a few human characters: [guːld]. The former were usually used by either technically-minded people (Dr. Jackson, Carter) or people who spoke the Goa'uld language (Teal'c), while the latter was used by characters who just don't care enough to get it right (O'Neill).

* Several names in both Klingon and Vulcan in ''Franchise/StarTrek'': T'Pol, K'Ehleyr, etc. In Klingon the apostrophe actually represents a letter of their alphabet and is pronounced as a glottal stop.

* The first God Damn Whores album is stylised as "wē äre the̲ luck•y thir•teen", most likely appealing to this trope to make the 'luck•y thir•teen' seem otherworldly. Or it could just be an egregious case of the rock dots got out of hand.

* Kick boxer and mixed martial artist turned professional wrestler best known for his time in Wrestling/RingOfHonor, Ta'Darius Thomas. Most of his coworkers just call him "TD".

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' has a case that's grounded in reality. The protagonist, a Native American, is named Ratonhnhaké:ton--it's pronounced along the lines of ''RA-doon-ha-GAY-doon'', not ''ra-TONE-ha-KAY-ton'', which is acknowledged by the character and his people obvioulsy pronouncing it correctly while a contempoary-period chaacter in the immediate sequel completely butchers it. This is a name based on the Kanien'kéha aka Mohawk language, and the punctuation shaker comes as a result of transcription methods doing this to a lot of First Nation languages. In the story, he's given the name Connor by his mentor Achilles both because of the issues between colonials and natives, and so others can refer to him easily without needing to figure out another language.

* Creator/BlizzardEntertainment makes use of this a lot, something commented on by lead story dev, Creator/ChrisMetzen. The ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' series tends to give them to evil characters such as Gul'dan, Ner'zhul, and Kel'thuzad. Kel'thuzad is particularly jarring, considering that was his name when he was still a regular human wizard [[AerithAndBob with no explanation]]. In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', the voice acting forcves them to pronounce TheUnpronounceable, raising the question why the Old God Y'Shaarj wasn't just spelled something like Yasharaj, since that's what they say anyway, even when it's an insectoid who should be able to get it right pronouncing it. And ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' has [[{{Precursors}} the Xel'Naga]].

* In the English version of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'', one of the bosses is called "Master of Nu'un". There is no such thing as "Nu'un" in the game's plot, but the name makes a nice [[PunnyName and punny]] contrast with the one of their counterpart Jack of Alltrades. JackOfAllTrades, but MasterOfNone.

* In ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity Nova'', the Polaris have an apostrophe laden name scheme, which transfers to a whole set of worlds. This can be a problem for players when it comes to locating specific worlds. This also applies to the [[StarfishAliens Wraith]] systems, which all have names looking like Teev'E'Tropus.

* ''VideoGame/HiddenDuality'' gives us M'kavlar's Fort. It was one of the few made-up names amongst names like Historia Temple, Tungsten Excavation Site and Sleet Stone Cavern.

** The [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe asari]] occasionally have a shaker, such as Liara T'Soni, Sha'ira and Aria T'Loak. The batarians present this more prominently, and at least one turian, Lorik Qui'in, has it too.

* ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'' has several characters with an apostrophe in their names, starting with Daniel Ti'Fiona. Many of these names came from player characters in the MMO Furcadia, or were suggested by readers.

* Almost everyone's name's in ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'' has at least two apostrophes, being inspired by the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' Drow. Just ask Mel'anarch Val'sarghress. There are exceptions, such as Ariel, Syphile, Liriel and some others. The apostrophe after "Val" does serve a legitimate purpose: the actual house name is merely Sarghress, and Val is an honorific attached to indicate noble standing. But aside from that, though, it really does fit this trope to a T.

** Also, Ambassador Ch'vorthq is pronounced like the Ch in China, not in Chevrolet, followed by the noise an expensive piece of china makes when struck by a chevrolet, a plain "vor", soft Th and the Q in Quetzalcoatl.[[note]]The Q in Quetzalcoatl, of course, is just a K—traditional Nahuatl orthography is derived from Spanish, so it writes its K as "C" before O, A, and U, and as "Qu" before I and E.[[/note]]

* In the ''Literature/PeacockKingTrilogy'', apostrophes etc. are used to incorporate information about family, status and citizenship into the names. For example, Ebrelle becomes Ebrellin-i upon coronation, h'Akribastes marks the head of the Akribastes family, o'Radia is the king of Radia. Pronounciation is still a nightmare, for a lot of reasons.

* Many Breton surnames start with Ker- (Kerouac, Kermarrec), which was often replaced with a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_with_diagonal_stroke struck K]] (Ꝃ: the lower arm is crossed; compare the more familiar ℞). With typography came the inability to reproduce the struck K, which led to it being written K/ or K’ (turning Kerouac into K’ouac or K/ouac). Still today, mainly in oversea territories, some French people have names such as K/Jean, K’madec, K/ily (and frequently run into trouble with bureaucracy).

* Badly configurated computer systems can result in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake this,]] with more or less horrid results depending in the target language. For example, in Spain cash-machines and computerized punchclocks, it is far too common for a name like "Begoña" (tilde n) to crop up like "BEGO A", "Begoña" or "BEGO./ A". English is just fine, and Spanish at least intelligible, but any language which uses other letters than Basic Latin Alphabet (like some of the above examples) is a complete [[WallOfText Wall of...]] ''[[BuffySpeak Something-that-is-not-text]]'

** Most languages with distinct click consonants go into extremes with this. (Largely because languages with click consonants are possibly even ''less'' suited for transcription in Roman alphabets than some First Nations and Caucasian languages that have consonants and vowels never dreamt of in Europe.) And there are many types of click consonants; !Kung actually has one of the larger inventories of distinct click consonants in a language.
* Romanized transliterations of Semitic words and names will usually put in an apostrophe for one of a glottal stop, a pharyngeal sound (sometimes the symbol for this is a reversed apostrophe, ‘ instead of ’), or a schwa sound that doesn't merit a full vowel. ''E.g.'' The Hebrew newspaper ''Ha'aretz'' (glottal stop), the letter ‘ayin (pharyngeal), or the word ''b'nai'' (meaning "children of", featuring a schwa). [[Literature/TheQuran The Islamic holy book]] is normally spelled as the Quran or Koran in English (without an apostrophe), but a better transliteration is ''Qur'an'', with a glottal stop. Other Arabic words have a letter 'ayn, like ''‘Iraq or'' ''Sa‘udi''. This sound is ''not'' a glottal stop (although the equivalent letter now mostly is in Modern Hebrew) but a pharyngeal sound that is also made in the throat but in a different way. The difference is hard to hear for the unfamilar but is quite distinct to a trained ear.
** It's fairly common to see apostrophes proper used as a sign for a glottal stop in First Nations/indigenous North American languages as well, as well as Caucasian languages.
* Another use of apostrophes in the writing systems of indigenous American languages and latinizations of Caucasian languages is to write ejectives. The trigraph ''ch[='=]'' is used for the palatal-alveolar ejective affricate in the Latin-based scripts for Quechua and several Mayan languages, as well as romanization of Georgian and Armenian.

* Romanizations of Russian usually substitute the punctuation shaker for the letters Ъ (hard sign) and Ь (soft sign). These letters are silent, and basically are there to tell you that the part of the word after them is supposed to be pronounced like a separate word, with a short pause and full yot (meaning an English "[consonantal] Y sound") before the following vowels. The soft sign is different from the hard sign in that it also denotes palatalization of the preceding consonant.

* In English accent marks are frequently dropped, except in a handful of loanwords and even then only occasionally (résumé, fiancé/fiancée; the former sometime even ends up losing the first acute but keeping the second, resulting in "resumé". The latter is doubly bad as some people do not distinguish between the two gendered forms), even when they actually matter. It also used to be standard to use a grave accent to distinguish when a vowel was voiced or swallowed, hence "learned," the past tense of the verb learn, versus "learnèd" which is an adjective meaning "knowledgeable". Other examples include dogged/doggèd and beloved/belovèd. These days the correct pronunciation must be inferred from context, and the only place grave accents are seen is certain forms of poetry and song, where the exact pronunciation affects the meter.
* As noted above (in the VGM example for ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'') a ''lot'' of Roman transcription systems for First Nations languages tend to fall into this (largely because a lot of First Nations languages plain don't have sounds or distinctions in sounds that lend well to Roman letters). Mohawk is among the ''less'' problematic languages (with JUST having diacritics for nasal vowels, retroflex consonants, glottal stops and vowel length and tone); Nuxalk and other Salishan languages can take this pretty far because these languages have some of the highest ratios of consonants to vowels ever documented in a language.

* In 1993, shortly after the fall of Soviet Union, Uzbekistan decided to switch from the Cyrillic script to Latin. The proposed new alphabet was to contain the letters Ç, Ş, Ğ, and Ö as the related Turkish language did. Uzbekistan-Turkey relations worsening and a desire to make the alphabet ASCII-compliant resulted in those letters being removed in a following revision in 1995, with Ç and Ş being replaced with the digraphs Ch and Sh as in English, and Ö and Ğ being replaced by the letter-apostrophe combinations Oʻ and Gʻ. With a lone apostrophe also being used for the glottal stop, they make Uzbek one of the most apostrophe-heavy languages today -- as can be seen in the country's native name: Oʻzbekiston.
* In 2017 Kazakhstan also began a switch from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to a Latin-based one. The president has explicitly aimed to avoid "hooks or superfluous dots" (in other words, á é í ó ú and whatnot) when devising the alphabet, instead preferring to use apostrophes like aforementioned Uzbek did. This decision [[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/world/asia/kazakhstan-alphabet-nursultan-nazarbayev.html has been roundly criticized]], and a second revision saw the president give up and just use said hooks and superfluous dots.
* The punctuation shaker is popular with first-time ConLang creators, probably also thanks to Tolkien, who as noted above did 'not' tend to use the apostrophe in his own languages much at all but did use many other accent marks for things such as vowel length. A sign of a newbie conlanger is using a lot of accents and/or punctuation marks in arbitary and bizarre ways that no real language does, to the point it looks like it's mostly for the aesthetic not unlike the Xtreme Kool Letterz trope.