#computer glitch

Given all of the damage, repairs and updates Voyager undergoes, it's not a stretch that the duty rosters are just glitchy, and regularly burp up random names that are not real crew members.

I like to think that with the lack of entertainment in the Delta Quadrant, many officers get a kick out of seeing what wild names the computer will generate today. "Where does the computer keep getting this 'Commander Jeri Taylor' from?"

Some specific names might even have become telltale signs that the ship's systems are malfunctioning.

"Uh-oh...uh, Lieutenant? It looks like we've got 'Charlie Quizzlink' joining us again today."

B'Elanna clenches her teeth, and mutters under her breath, "Seven! That damn drone is performing an unauthorized upgrade again, I'll bet!"

That said, some of the names must be real. Ironically, those listed names tend to do a much better job at representing Starfleet's global diversity than the names we hear onscreen, which tend to be very generic and British.

As stated in my other post, the onscreen characters probably have generic Western names so that the studio doens't have to worry about which extra to cast. But for names that only appear in writing, anything goes. And funny enough, with many of these names they didn't even have to try: they tend to be names of behind-the-scenes production staff, who were just naturally a diverse bunch.

Some personal favorites of mine, that I chose to believe are real crew members on Voyager:

Kristine Fernandez

Arlene Fukai

Diane Overdeik

David Orlando

Hindaki Shibunawa

Ikuyo Seuphon

Lisa De Moraes

Bob De La Garza

Jon Djanrelian

Suzi Shimizu

Abraham Rawski

Zayra Cabot

Mary-Ellen Bosche

Pierre Rhan

Evelyn Rameau

Maricella Ramirez

Cosmo Genovese

George Rosa

David Rossi

Henri Scheimer

Wendy Drapanas

Fernando Sepuvelda

India Shigihara (probably an off-worlder, named for her family's home country)

Brad Yacobian

Dawn Velasquez

Elaina Vescio

Jessica Leong

Art Codron (I say it's French a woman, named Artemise)

...I know you can't judge a book by its cover. But these names imply far more intriguing characters than "Crewman Foster" or "Ensign Hickman." This actually looks like a crew of people from around Earth and its colonies, each with their own special place back in the Alpha Quadrant that they miss.

Likely glitch names:

Charlie Quizzlink

John Schoolcraft

Keith Rockefeller

Waverly Smothers

...Yes, that last one is a real name of a real staff member on "Star Trek." Truth can be stranger than fiction. And hey, it's the future. So even Charlie Quizzlink and John Schoolcraft could be real. But there's something surreal about these names, that makes them feel like something a glitching computer would surprise you with.

Definitely glitch names:

Commander Rick Berman

Commander Brannon Braga

Commander Jeri Taylor

Ken Biller (he's listed on both Voyager and the Prometheus, while the two ships are on opposite sides of the galaxy!)

...alternatively, these might not be glitches, but code names for restricted files. Though one would think a code name would be less conspicuous. Maybe some of those generic boring names are the restricted files.

In conclusion...

Memory Alpha lists something like 300 crew members for Voyager, which is too many.

By eliminating names that:

Only appear in writing

Only appear in a dream, hallucination, or the holodeck

Can plausibly be aliases

Can plausibly be misspeaks by characters

Are redundant repeats (Memory Alpha assuming that any discrepancy in a background character means it's a new character)

....brings that number all the way down to about 130 or so. And that's including people who died or left the ship.

Adding the 27-30 written names I really like bumps it back up to about 160. Again, including crew members who didn't end up sticking around.