Data's Name Led To Gene Roddenberry Creating A New Star Trek Rule

There is a notable scene in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "The Child" wherein Dr. Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) mispronounces Data's name. Data (Brent Spiner) tells her that his name is pronounced "Day-tah" and not "Dah-tah" as she presumed. Pulaski is a little miffed by being corrected, as she thinks very lowly of the android. What's the difference?, she asks. Data plainly says, "One is my name. The other is not."

Over the course of multiple episodes, Pulaski eventually learned to respect Data, and always pronounced his name correctly after the end of that conversation. One can see, however, how Pulaski would be confused, as she perhaps only read Data's name on ship manifests. Also, Data was (in a corny, sci-fi way) named after units of information. He could have easily been n