Nyota Uhura
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura on the set of Star Trek: The Original Series
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|
| Species | Human |
|---|---|
| Affiliation |
United Federation of Planets Starfleet |
| Posting |
USS Enterprise chief communications officer Starfleet Command USS Enterprise-A chief communications officer Starfleet Academy |
| Rank |
Lieutenant Lieutenant commander Commander |
| Portrayed by |
Nichelle Nichols (1966–1991) Zoë Saldana (2009–present) |
Nyota Uhura /niːˈoʊtə ʊˈhʊrə/ is a fictional character in the Star Trek franchise. The character was portrayed by Nichelle Nichols through the sixth Star Trek film. Since 2009, a younger Uhura has been portrayed by actress Zoe Saldana.
Uhura is a translator and communications officer who specializes in linguistics, cryptography, and philology. She was an important part of the original series' multicultural crew and one of the first characters of African descent to be featured in a non-menial role on an American television series.
Gene Roddenberry had intended his new female communications officer to be called "Lieutenant Sulu".Herb Solow pointed out how similar this was to "Zulu" and thought it might act against the plan for racial diversity in the show, so the name Sulu remained with George Takei's character. "Uhura" comes from the Swahili word , meaning "freedom". Nichols states in her book Beyond Uhura that the name was inspired by her having had with her a copy of Robert Ruark's book Uhuru on the day she read for the part. When producer Robert Justman explained to Roddenberry what the word uhuru meant, he changed it to Uhura and adopted that as the character's name. Coincidentally, the end credits of the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country incorrectly refer to Uhura as "Uhuru".
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