“Again, the short laugh. ‘You may simply call me Gres, Mr. Johnson. It is usually the best that human tongues can do with my name.’ His tone grew more wistful. ‘Samantha was the only human who was ever able to pronounce it properly.’“
-from Letting Go by Keith R. A. Decandido in Star Trek Voyager: Distant Shores, edited by Marco Palmieri
I’m not sure if this is the originator for Greskrendtregk shortening his name to Gres in beta canon, or if this is following another beta canon novel’s decision to do it. I’ve also seen fic authors shorten his name this way - not sure if it’s because they’re following beta canon or that Greskrendtregk is a lot to type out.
But!
As a person with a long name that starts with a G that absolutely no monolingual English-speaker can get right on the first try I hate this decision. It’s not that humans physically can’t say Ktarian names - Samantha has obviously figured it out and can say it. So it’s more that awkward balking that happens when people just don’t want to try, that annoying little laugh of “oh haha, that’s quite a name/ I’ll never be able to keep that straight” or the immediate insistence of “Well I’m going to call you [nickname].” Greskrendtregk has clearly met that multiple times, and just decided its easier to forward an alternative, a nickname, a shorter version, which I get because its tiring! I have also made the decision of “I guess I will simply be a different person at work” after spending weeks correcting everyone. I get it but it doesn’t make me any less mad about the phenomenon.
The episodes with Ensign Ro fighting to get her name said correctly in TNG touch on this as well, the (because its sci-fi) human-centrism and, more importantly, the (because its sci-fi written by a specific make-up of people) English-language-centrism that casually strips people of their names and the personal and cultural import they have.
