Why are we "Earthlings"?

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The term "Earthlings" seems to be a diminutive term. I'd rather be called a Terran or Human by a visiting alien species.

Homosapiens?

Homo Sapien is the name of our species. I'm talking about taxonomic nomenclature here. Vulcans are from Vulcan, Kilngons are from Kronos, the Minbari are from Minbar. There's no "-ling" or "-ican"s in their names.

I guess the word Homo has been taken. Uh, persons?

Earthers?

It's more aesthetically pleasing to the ear than "earthans," which would involve two closed vowels formed in the mid-back of the mouth. "Earthiards," as in Spaniards, sounds even worse because the hard "R" vowel is repeated. (I'm using Europe rather than star trek for examples, because I have a feeling this was more relevant to the people who coined the term.)

Earthlings allows the tongue to flip back from the "th" sound on the "l" consonant, to form the contrasting front vowel of "|" (pronounced "ih") before hitting the nasal "ng" sound.

Try saying each a few times, I think you'll agree it does sound better. I doubt the reasons behind the term were any more complicated.

Terranrians or humanidadians

Elephants, tigers, dolphins and all animals are earthlings. It would be funny if aliens was to try greet a tiger but really they refer to us as a creature of earh and not a specific species.

Technically, given that the planets in this system are all named for Roman gods, we should be Terrans (from Terra, Roman earth goddess, rough equivalent of the Greek Gaia). However, when bad sci-fi movies were being made in the Fifties, nobody thought it would be worth bothering with doing any research, so they developed the diminutive "Earthlings", intended to evoke "fledglings" in the listener's mind.

I prefer "Terran", of course. (As James White pointed out in his Sector General stories, every species' name for itself would most likely translate as "human", and they would think of all others as "nonhuman" - yes, even the elephantine Tralthans, and the insectile Cinrusskin.)

One name for Humankind, in Hebrew, is Adam (if that's singular then Adamim(masc.) or Adamoth(fem.) would be plural. Not certain though.)

How would you feel if an alien addressed you as "son of Adam!"?

Solians or Sols. Our sun is called Sol, and we are from the Solar System. But some other intergalactic civs will just call us "lunch".

We're Aspergians, the next step in human evolution.

Well he said he didn't want icans or ings. Maybe Aspergos for those who are genitically the hybrid for homos. Unless Aspergos means something else in greek.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger

OK, we could be known as the Hans.