Weird Star Wars Names And Their Bizarre Origin
Star Wars has a seemingly infinite amount of characters and aliens—some of which appear on screen for only seconds—and all of them require names to appease the nitpickiest of fans. It’s almost impossible to come up with that many titles without pulling some of them from unusual sources. The practice of giving even the most insignificant of Star Wars background characters their own weird designations even inspired a viral meme a few years ago with Glup Shitto.
Possibly the weirdest Star Wars name was pulled, like many of them, from George Lucas’s flannel-wearing backside. The father of Star Wars was once asked by former Daily Show host Jon Stewart what the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s home planet was, to which he replied “Stewjon,” a bastardization of Stewart’s name. What was obviously a joke became canon simply because the big man himself coined it.
The names of three separate henchmen working for Jabba the Hutt, Klaatu, Barada, and Nikto, share their names with the famous three words spoken in the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still…
Even when not under pressure to be funny, Lucas comes up with some wild stuff. Take the character selling “death sticks” in Attack of the Clones. Lucas clearly sees drug peddling as a sleazy profession, as evidenced by the fact that he named the poor fellow Elan Sleazebaggano. Compared to that fellow Attack of the Clones alum Dexter Jettster got off light with his last name–being simply a fun nod to George’s son Jett Lucas.
George Lucas himself has a cameo in Star Wars: Episode III-Revenge of the Sith as the opera-goer “Notluwiski Papanoida.” It doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to analyze that name and realize that “Papa” refers to Lucas as the father of the franchise, and “Notluwiski” is close to “Not Lucas” if you squint really, really, hard.
The father of Star Wars was once asked by former Daily Show host Jon Stewart what the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s home planet was, to which he replied “Stewjon,” a bastardization of Stewart’s name. What was obviously a joke became canon simply because the big man himself coined it.
Lucas is far from the only culprit, however, when it comes to bizarre Star Wars names. J.J. Abrams is a huge fan of the rap group the Beastie Boys, as evidenced by the fact that he puts the song “Sabotage” in everything. When it came time to name the Abednedo resistance pilot in The Force Awakens, Abrams paid homage to the Beasties by naming the character Ello Asty, a play on “Hello Nasty,” one of the group’s albums.
This started a trend, and now every other member of the Abednedo race—including the Last Jedi‘s Slowen Lo, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt—is named after either a Beastie Boys song or album.
Other names like The Phantom Menace‘s Nute Gunray—first name inspired by Newt Gingrich, last name the syllables in the name Reagan, rearranged—aren’t as obvious at first glance.
One of the more clever in jokes when it comes to Star Wars names is the inclusion of the phrase Klaatu Barada Nikto in Return of the Jedi. The names of three separate henchmen working for Jabba the Hutt, Klaatu, Barada, and Nikto, share their names with the famous three words spoken in the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still, as well as the third Evil Dead movie Army of Darkness—which came out a decade after Jedi but it’s still a cool bit of trivia nonetheless.
Some Star Wars names are self-explanatory. The Jedi Padawan from the 2D Clone Wars series with the scruffy hair and the barely-there goatee named Sha’a Gi? Well zoinks, it’s pretty easy to guess where his name came from!
Other names like The Phantom Menace‘s Nute Gunray—first name inspired by Newt Gingrich, last name the syllables in the name Reagan, rearranged—aren’t as obvious at first glance.
Then there are names so on-the-nose, like Jedi Ima-Gun-Di, who appeared in a season 3 episode of The Clone Wars. Why only one episode? Let’s just say there’s a reason that his name looks like “I’m Gonna Die.”
Then we have the worst Star Wars name of all time. A name with both an obvious origin as well as a cruel one—Jek Porkins. Porkins was named as such because, quite simply, he was a large guy. As if naming the fat pilot “Porkins” isn’t mean enough, his canon in-universe nickname was “Piggy.” Hey, Star Wars, do better!
