The Xenomorph term wasn't created by the fandom. It was first used in-universe in "Aliens".

But it’s based on a misunderstanding. Xenomorph just means “alien”— it wouldn’t make any sense for that to be the term for that specific alien, because their existence isn’t common knowledge.

It doesn't just mean "alien". It's a portmanteau or blend word. Only the xeno part means alien. The morph part describes its growth process.

It isn't a portmanteau, it's a classic Greek word construction (an ordinary expression of classic Greek morphology). "Morph" generally just means "shape" as a Greek root so "xenomorph" is more accurately "alien-shaped". Which gets back to it being a very generic term said in a fancy way (like "we don't even know if it is an alien, we just know it is alien-shaped"), like much technical and scientific jargon will do when it goes to constructing Greek words to describe something ("gynomorph" => "woman-shaped"; to call to a different sci-fi horror Species).

It's just an adjective. It would literally be like calling your aliens "humanoids". It describes a shape, literally "alien-shaped", probably because all the other animal-shape adjectives were inadequate.

I agree with this--if I understand you correctly.

In "Aliens", when Hudson (or was it Hicks?) asks, "is this another bug hunt?" the lieutenant says, (paraphrasing) "there may be a xenomorph involved".

I interpret this to mean that

(a) The marines have previously fought alien creatures of some kind (and they had no problem dealing with them).

(b) They used the term "xenomorph" to mean any alien creature--not specifically the titular alien, which they had never before encountered.

So I agree. Calling it "the Xenomorph" is a misunderstanding. At best it's like calling something "the Beast", or calling all ships of a certain size "dreadnoughts".

The Marines also referenced sexual relations with "Arcturians" which might be human colonists or sentient aliens.

I really like your point about the Marines having fought/hunted/exterminated other "bugs". It casts their bravado in a different light. Even after seeing catastrophic damage from "acid for blood", the Marines are still very confident, which after beating other alien species, makes perfect sense. It's only when they get into the nest do they start getting scared.

I love the scene where the marines go in for the first time. They start out well-disciplined, well-trained badass marines, but things start to go wrong one by one. First, they have to put away their rifles (too close to the fusion reactor), then they see movement on the motion-detector but can't see anything ("Maybe they don't show up in infrared"). Once Apone gets killed, the entire unit falls apart. They come out shell-shocked and demoralized.

It's a great scene.

> Should be something like Gigeroids.

Xenomorph sounds way cooler. That's what's important in a movie/toy franchise.

But they morph to resemble their hosts?

The "morph" in "xenomorph" as a purely Greek scientific jargon construction mostly just means "shape". It is interesting in English "morph" as a verb has come to mean "change shape", and it is possible the users of the term in the franchise do intend that. But technically if that were the intended meaning it would be something closer to "xenotransmorph".

The use of the term "xenomorph" in the film predates the development of the morphing technology, seen early on in Willow, The Abyss, and it largely entered popular perception after T2 in the early 90s. So: no.

Same morph as in polymorphism.

Should be [unpronouceable-mix-of-vowels-and-cosonants], which in their language means "actual people" or "true people". That seems to be the name of most of the ethnic and cultural groups on our planet. There are people (i.e. us) and there are "those funny looking weirdos over there" (i.e. them). No reason it would be different for space-faring slimy mutant thingies.

My favorite of these is the Czech word (and its cognates in other Slavic languages) for German, němec, is derived from the word for mute, apparently because on the Slav’s first contact with Germans, they found their speech so incomprehensible as to assume that these strange beings just couldn’t speak.

Xenomorph sounds cooler.

plus, it's gotta be a killer word score in Scrabble

Rule of cool wins again

Ahh, but you miss out on the 'cool' aspect embodied by letter X, the underlying meaning that effectively refers to the title of the movie and other things are likely going over my head. Gige prefix does not have the same impact. Alien in fake latin sounds a lot better.

Greek, not Latin

Thank you for catching this. Will leave original in place.

Yeah, if they used Z instead of X, the Brits would have said Zedenomorph and that's just not right in any language