Talk:Tenno/@comment-14.136.149.125-20151207042847/@comment-4199482-20151228203557

I don't think it was just a joke. I think it was fully intended (and is probably a retcon). I think the Orokin took to calling the survivors of the Zariman ship the Ten Zero as a reference to the ship and to dehumanize them. Over time, as these children began to become more and more legendary during the war with their warframes, the Ten Zero group also became legendary, and the Orokin and their descendents began to linguistically corrupt the name into Tenno. As the Orokin golden age became more and more distant in the past and its people/memories faded too, "Tenno" basically lost its original connotation.

The big hole in this theory is that "Tenno" is Japanese for "Divine Emperor" which seems like what was totally the original intent. That's why I said this new etymology is probably a retcon, otherwise it's too much of a coincidence.