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alangiaceae
Since: Nov, 2014
7th Oct, 2018 04:36:02 AM
I know I've read this. I'm thinking it's by Fredric Brown, which absolutely does not narrow it down.
A story I read in an anthology at least fifteen years ago. A human ("Smith," I'll call him) is out solo-exploring the distant galaxy and has some accident that leaves him stranded on a far-off world. It's a pleasant place, though, and the humanoid natives are friendly, so he makes the best of it, adapts a native name ("Baratu", or whatever) and settles down. However, he knows that sooner or later someone from Earth will officially find the planet, so he carefully teaches his hosts what to do when that happens. He lives out the rest of his life and dies.
At some point after that, sure enough, more humans finally arrive, with the villain of the piece plotting to swindle the inhabitants out of their world and turn it into vacation resorts or somesuch. Thanks to Smith, however, the natives know all the proper bureaucratic details needed to get their planet officially declared a galactic wildlife refuge. The villain skulks off defeated, and a sympathetic human witness to all this hears they are officially naming the refuge "Baratu". The human says they should have named it "Smith". The last line of the story is one of the natives saying "Smith? Who is Smith?"