Toren’s name

I documented the decision to call our son Toren in this post from March 4th, 2009.  On June 13th I traced the etymology of the name “Toren Marx” the best I could in this post.  Well, as it turns out, we’re going to have to revise at least part of that etymology and own up to being uber-sci-fi geeks.  Here’s the story…

I regularly read a technology website called Slashdot (it’s how I stay up to date on all things tech and geek).  I caught this story about the selling of props from the TV series Stargate: SG1 and its offshoot, Stargate: Atlantis.  FYI, Debi and I have seen every episode from both series and we’re definitely fans – not over-the-top crazy fans, but big fans.  Ergo, I had to follow the link in the story to see what is being sold (if I had the money, I would so buy the Jaffa Staff Weapon)!  But my geekiness didn’t stop there.  I then clicked on the Ebay link to see what they had for sale at the moment.  I looked through all 150 items they had on sale then, but one caught my eye: Stargate Torren Costume.  A “Torren” costumen?  Huh?

My initial thought was that there was a species in the series who were called “Torrens” or something like that.  I didn’t remember them, but I don’t always remember things like that.  But, no, it’s better than that.  One of the main characters from Stargate: Atlantis, Teyla Emmagan (Rachel Luttrell), had a child in Season 5, which was the last season.  The season aired through 2008-2009, while Debi was pregnant.  That child became part of the main storyline early in Season 5 as the child is part of an experiment being conducted by the rebel Wraith, Michael.

And what was this child’s name?  “Torren John“!!!!  He’s named after Tayla’s father and John Shepherd, the main character of the series.  Knowing what we know about psychology, the name “Torren” must have slipped into our minds during the show.  If you look back at my post on the etymology of the name, you’ll see that I said that Debi just came up with the name on her own and we liked it.  Well, here’s the revision: Given what I’ve just outlined, it’s pretty obvious that we got the name “Torren” from Stargate: Atlantis, but because the child was basically never a prominent character, the name didn’t get associated with the show in our minds.  But that has to be the source of the name.

Anyway, to answer the question that you’re all asking (or at least should be, knowing how geeky we are): Did we buy the Torren costume prop?

The answer:  Of course!

It set us back about $70.00, but we are now the proud owners of the Torren costume prop which helped us realize the actual source for Toren’s name:

Here’s the great irony to all of this.  The other name we considered for Toren was “Ronan Dax,” which is a combination of two names from Science Fiction.  Ronan was a main character on Stargate: Atlantis and “Dax” are a species that feature prominently in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  One of the arguments against using that name was that we didn’t want Toren to have to explain to everyone how geeky his parents are, giving him a name from Science Fiction shows.  Alas, we are so geeky we actually gave him a name from Science Fiction AND didn’t even know it!