Kal-El is
Superman's Kryptonian name. "Kal" means
child and "El" means
Star, hence Kal-El literally means "
star child", a fitting
moniker for someone who was put on a rocket ship bound for
Earth. Landing safely in the farming community of
Smallville, Kal-El was rescued and raised by the Kents, who named their little boy
Clark.
In Kryptonian society,
descendence and
inheritance favoured the father's side rather than the mother's side. The names of most - but by no means all - Kryptonian males were
duosyllabic, with the first syllable being the given name, the second the
surname. Also, most men use
hyphenated names, like
Jor-El (Superman's father). Kryptonian females were given a special feminine first name which would be followed by her father's name (or, when she got married, her husbands name). Thus Kal-El's mother was
Lara Jor-El.
Many of the most revered figures in Kryptonian history were members of the
House of El and were, therefore,
ancestors of
Superman (who is part of 23rd generation of the
House of El). Among them were Val-El, who launched his planet's
Age of Exploration and discovered islands and continents; Sul-El, who invented
Krypton's first
telescope and charted many far off stars, including Earth's sun; Tala-El, a great
lawyer and
statesman who authored Krypton's planet-wide
constitution; and Hatu-El, who discovered the nature of electricity, proved that lightning was electrical, and invented Krypton's first electric motor.