Much has been made of Ryland Grace's name being Grace, and that's extremely valid, but I think y'all might be sleeping on the Ryland part.
Because rye wasn't domesticated like other cereals. It was a weed with enough of a passing resemblance to wheat and barley that there was accidental gradual selection for similarity to crops, which meant larger seeds. At which point rye still mostly stayed as a weed, but a arable (useful/edible) one. And then (after thousands of years of arable weediness) it was intentionally cultivated, likely due to its frost resistance and ability to grow in poorer soil than it its ostensibly higher nutrition domesticated competition, becoming a regionally vital crop. The cultivated strain continued to hybridize with its weedier/"earlier" rye relatives in the wild in a way that was hard to control, leading to a high level of genetic diversity (until relatively recently) compared with other grains.
I'm just saying that at some point, maybe a couple years into the road trip, maybe not until linguists dig in post-nutrient crisis, Rocky, who on day two (2) of their collaboration/friendship, was informed the bipedal leaky space blob's name was "Elegant movement" and duly provided the eridian tranlation with the same sense of amusement that new Merry Men got upon meeting Little John, who called him that name in literally every possible emotional register from sarcastic glee (watching sleep-deprived 'elegant motion' trip on its own feet for the 4th time that day) to great and terrible fear (rocky was not actually thinking about dramatic irony while watching Elegant-Motion be thrown to the wall and lay there unmoving while its body weight crushed its lungs, but he did maybe think about it with dark humor later) to unfathomable love, gratitude, shock, relief, thankfulness (at a certain point a funny nickname ceases to mean anything but that person. Grace is here, Grace came back, Grace is here!), Rocky is going to find out that was not in fact the only translation for his name.
Apparently Grace's name could ALSO have been translated as first name: "Expanse of living things which survive terrible cold and lack of nutrients and are good in hidden ways and unintentionally shaped themselves to be chosen for consumption by humanity", last name: "Help/ Mercy/ Kindness from a higher power". At which point Rocky will clarify that 1)Grace didn't make all that up just now to fuck with him 2) that's been his name since birth. And then Rocky will speedrun all 7 Eridian stages of Grief and chase Grace around with a wrench.
