In her stand-up act, actress and comedian Sasheer Zamata (pronounced sah-SHEER zah-MAY-tah) mentions that her parents created her unique first name from a word they heard while watching the sci-fi TV series Star Trek.
Here’s how she told the story on The Talk in October:
Captain Kirk was flirting with this alien princess, as he does, and he handed her a rose. And she was like, “Oh, we have something like this on my planet, except it’s made out of crystal and its called sahsheer.” And my parents wrote it down, [and] named me years later.
That sahsheer scene was part of the episode “By Any Other Name,” which first aired in February of 1968. My hunch is that Zamata’s parents were watching a re-run during the early 1980s, because Zamata wasn’t born until mid-1986.
Here’s the relevant dialogue from “By Any Other Name” between Capt. James T. Kirk and the alien woman Kelinda (of the planet Kelva):
Kelinda: (picks a flower, smells it) These are lovely. Captain Kirk, what is it you call them?
Kirk: Flowers. I don’t know the variety.
Kelinda: Our memory tapes tell us of such things on Kelva. Crystals that form with such rapidity, they seem to grow. They look like this fragile thing, somewhat. We call them sahsheer.
Kirk: (mumbles) A rose by any other name.
Kelinda: Captain?
Kirk: A quote from a great human poet, Shakespeare. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
I’m not sure how many other babies were named after the flower-shaped crystals, but we know that at least a few were named after Kelinda…
Sources:
- Sasheer Zamata – Wikipedia
- Sasheer Zamata Shares How She Got Her Name | The Talk – YouTube [vid]
- Sasheer Zamata Wants You To Get Her Name Right! – YouTube [vid]
- By Any Other Name – Wikipedia
- By Any Other Name – The Star Trek Transcripts
Image: Screenshot of The Talk
