What's in a name? ..variations of a theme

[on:]

The name of the ruler of Omicron Persei 8 has been spelled as Lure, Lur, and Lrrr. The name of his sharp-tongued second wife has morphed from Ndunda to Nd-Nd. And Prof. Farnsworth's clone heir-to-be first appeared as Qbert and later as Cubert. There may be more mutating names, these I came across while watching the episodes with English subtitles on (as a native of Finland I sometimes need to read the dialogue to fully understand what's going on..).

Has anybody else noticed the changing names? And would logic dictate that thus all the different spellings are correct? This might be splitting hairs; still I would like to hear any and all input on this issue.

[Reply #1 on:]

My guess is that the people who write the sub-title text do not have an official spelling guide and sometimes have to guess how to spell unusual names based on how they sound. Hence the spelling of names can change because different people  may either hear the name differently or hear the same thing but spell it in different ways.

For example, in Bender's Big Score, when the Professor tells Bubblegum Tate that he doesn't think the equation of time can be solved, Bubblegum replies:

"[It] looks pretty damn solvable to me, Farnsy. Sweet Clyde, use variation of parameters and expand the Wronskian." (Or at least that's what *I* think he says.)

But on my copy of the DVD the word "Wronskian" is spelled "rhine skin" in the sub-titles.

Now, I had never heard of a Wronskian and certainly had no idea what it was or how to spell it but I found it almost as soon as I looked up 'variation of parameters'. Apparently the sub-title writer didn't do the same.

Futurama episode commentaries are where I found out how to spell names like Lrrr, Ndnd, and URL.

As an aside, I have no idea why so many fan-based futurama sources seem to deliberately mis-spell the word neutral.   

[Reply #2 on:]

Thx for your insightful commentary, hobbitboy. That sure would explain the changing names, especially if they continue to change.

I can't believe that "Wronskian" came out as "rhine skin" in the subtitles! That one is for the Anthology alright. 

[Reply #3 on:]

Maybe the names were mutated to sound more futuristic.