Doctor Who: 14 Cool Details In Steven Moffat & David Tennant's Silence In The Library Commentary

6. Why Moffat Chose The Name "Vashta Nerada"

Doctor Who Silence In The Library River Song David Tennant Alex Kingston
BBC Studios

When naming the various creatures, characters and locations in their stories, a lot of writers will try and get really clever by giving these made-up-monikers some sort of hidden meaning.

We've seen this in Doctor Who lots of times before - probably the most famous example is that the letters in "Doctor Who" can be rearranged to spell out "Torchwood" - but sometimes, names are just... names.

Case in point: the Vashta Nerada. During the commentary, Moffat is asked where the idea for that name came from, and - even though you might assume that there's some sort of nifty secret behind it - he states that "it's completely made up", and that he actually went out of his way to check that it didn't have a deeper meaning.

Hilariously, he also adds that he thought Tennant would "sound cool" saying it (he's not wrong!), which is mainly what made him settle on this particular name.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.