The following contains spoilers for Moonhaven, available on AMC+.
Moonhaven invites viewers into a lush sci-fi utopia, made all the more immersive by the series' focus on details. From the intricate attention to costuming and sound design to the rich languages, including futuristic slang and a kinetic alphabet, the world of Moonhaven feels entirely lived-in and fully fleshed out. One detail that stands out is the names used throughout the show, something that the characters themselves remark upon, but that might also indicate where the series is headed.
In Moonhaven's premiere, pilot Bella escorts envoy Indira Mare and her bodyguard, Tomm, to the lunar colony. When a member of this colony is murdered, Bella teams up with local detective Paul to help uncover the underlying mystery and solve the murder. The culprit ends up tied back to Tomm; no one knows who to trust. It soon becomes clear that everything on the lunar colony is not as utopian as it appears and that a rift has grown between the Mooners and the Earthers they were supposed to help.
The series outright addresses some of the character names. In a scene earlier in the first episode, bodyguard Tomm shares with Bella that his name means "to the mountains." When he shows her his name written down, it becomes clear that the two "m"s at the end of Tomm are meant to represent the peaks of a mountain range, while the starting "To-" shows the direction. Tomm then tells Bella that her name means both "beautiful" and "war," a reference to the meaning of the word bella in Latin. The scene is oddly poetic and immediately comforting, but it also invites viewers to think about the meaning and importance of the series' other names.
Prominently, the envoy Indira Mare's name, which has not yet been addressed on Moonhaven, sets up the character's important role as speaker for the lunar A.I. and representative of lunar relations. Her last name means "sea" in Latin, though the term widely applies to the large plains on the Moon's surface. No current lunar mare is named "Indira," but the envoy's surname is clearly designed to reference these lunar features. This ties her even more closely to the Moon, to the place that she has studied and sacrificed to serve.
Perhaps more telling, however, is Paul's name. Initially, it stands out as a fairly standard English name among a utopian colony that has embraced some absurd sci-fi tendencies in its language conventions, leading to names like Asus or Chill. More than just standing apart from the other Mooners, Paul also seems like a reference to the apostle from a particular Earth religion, responsible for spreading religious teachings but also famously a convert. It seems, from his namesake, that a religious conversion may be in Paul's future. Given the revolution fomenting among the Mooners, and how deeply the Earthers need the lunar technology, such a conversion could prove to be an inciting event and necessary for Moonhaven's resolution.
By drawing attention to character names in the first episode, Moonhaven has set the stage for interrogating those that appear in the rest of the series. If the creative team paid careful attention to what to call Bella and Tomm so that their first meeting would have such a meaningful moment, no less attention was paid to the names of the rest of the characters. As the rest of the series unfolds, it's likely that these carefully chosen names will resonate even more.
The first three episodes of Moonhaven are streaming now on AMC+, with new episodes airing on Thursdays.