WheresBlackhawk said:
Where does the name "Ben" Kenobi come from?
2 answers:
1. Moviemaking reason: Obi-Wan is a mouthful and sounds sort of "stilted" and unnatural. It also sounds 'cool' but in line with the "simple and used" universe that the OT presents, it's too high falutin'. 'Ben' brings it down to Earth, and connects with the audience better. Who's never known an old coot named Ben?
2. In universe- for similar reasons, people with long names get nick names from people that talk to them all of the time. Fortunately, no one called Obi-Wan "Obi" or "Wannie" in the movie, and "Ben" seems to share some sort of connection to the name, despite the fact that it's really hard to describe. Also, in the 70's, it was more logical that if you changed your first name and moved out of town that no one would ever find you. It's sort of the same excuse for why Luke can go by his father's surname Skywalker and not be found by an Imperial Google search. Now, we're much more skeptical of those things, but still. Crazy ol' "Ben" Kenobi living out in the desert is probably not the same as Jedi Knight "Obi-Wan" Kenobi, fugitive of the Empire. Ben hasn't heard the name "Obi-Wan" in a long time, because no one has known what his real name was in that same time. No one linked him back to his past.
That or maybe all Jedi were called Obi-Wan like all Sith were called Darth, I don't know!
I humbly link to my thread post about trying to come up with a "Ben" like nick name for Anakin: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Nick-name-for-little-orphan-Ani/topic/11331/