Idol speculation.
After watching the first disc of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation (yes, yes, I'm finally getting around to checking out TNG after having seen fewer than five full episodes when it was still pumping out new eps or in syndication; I have seen all of TOS, several times over in most cases, and all of the TNG movies), I'm wondering about something.
The security chief in Season 1 is Lt. Natasha (Tasha) Yar, played by Denise Crosby. (Yes, I'm aware that she beefs it towards the end of Season 1; thanks.)
In the 1940 movie The Philadelphia Story, which was based on a play of the same name by Philip Barry (which he'd written to revive Katharine Hepburn's career after she'd been dubbed "box-office poison"), Hepburn's Tracy Lord has a romantic contretemps with her husband, C.K. Dexter Haven, played by Cary Grant. Both characters are upper crust types; Dexter has a passion for sailing, and says that a really good sailboat is "yar." Towards the end of the movie, Tracy promises Dexter that she'll try to be "yar."
OK, so the producers of TNG changed the name of the security chief when Crosby wound up with the role instead of Marina Sirtis (they wound up switching roles , which means that Sirtis played the half-human, half-Betazoid Counselor Deanna Troi), because Deanna Crosby couldn't easily pass for Hispanic: the security chief's name was changed from Macha Hernandez to Tasha Yar, and her ethnicity was changed to Ukrainian.
Fine.
But.
I think it's quite a "co-inky-dink" that they happened to pick "Yar" for the character's last name, particularly since "-yar" seems to be used more often as an ending in Ukrainian surnames rather than a complete surname by itself.
Of course, Crosby would probably be the first to point out that the character wasn't really "yar" until she was killed off (as a result of Crosby wanting out of the series).
The security chief in Season 1 is Lt. Natasha (Tasha) Yar, played by Denise Crosby. (Yes, I'm aware that she beefs it towards the end of Season 1; thanks.)
In the 1940 movie The Philadelphia Story, which was based on a play of the same name by Philip Barry (which he'd written to revive Katharine Hepburn's career after she'd been dubbed "box-office poison"), Hepburn's Tracy Lord has a romantic contretemps with her husband, C.K. Dexter Haven, played by Cary Grant. Both characters are upper crust types; Dexter has a passion for sailing, and says that a really good sailboat is "yar." Towards the end of the movie, Tracy promises Dexter that she'll try to be "yar."
OK, so the producers of TNG changed the name of the security chief when Crosby wound up with the role instead of Marina Sirtis (they wound up switching roles , which means that Sirtis played the half-human, half-Betazoid Counselor Deanna Troi), because Deanna Crosby couldn't easily pass for Hispanic: the security chief's name was changed from Macha Hernandez to Tasha Yar, and her ethnicity was changed to Ukrainian.
Fine.
But.
I think it's quite a "co-inky-dink" that they happened to pick "Yar" for the character's last name, particularly since "-yar" seems to be used more often as an ending in Ukrainian surnames rather than a complete surname by itself.
Of course, Crosby would probably be the first to point out that the character wasn't really "yar" until she was killed off (as a result of Crosby wanting out of the series).