- Time
- Post link
One of my friends recently told me a story about how he tried to join a Star Wars MUD, but they wouldn't accept the character he submitted "didn't have a Star Wars-y name."
He, of course, didn't like this, but neither do I--in the EU or practically any other Star Wars spinoff, or even in the Prequels, Star Wars seems to have become over-populated by people with silly names, such as Qui-Gon Jinn or Aayla Secura or Jar Jar Binks.
But lets look at the original movies. The main character was named, of all things, Luke Skywalker--a perfectly ordinary Earth name (save for maybe the Skywalker part, but those kind of surnames are a fantasy convention). He knows an old man named Obi-Wan Kenobi (a name, obviously, meant to sound oriental in origin), meets a smuggler named Han Solo (Han is a real name) and a princess named Leia Organa (Leia being, of course, a variation of "Lee-Ann" and Organa being Morgana without the M). His enemy is named Darth Vader (Dark Invader, obviously). These names, obviously, reflected some sort of meaning or detail and showed us Lucas' inspiration. Names like "Qui-Gon Jinn" are made up at random and their whole purpose is to sound weird and sci-fi-ish.
Where the hell did the Star Wars universe come to be about people with whacky, generic Sci-Fi names?
