JAR JAR BINKS AND OTHER STAR WARS WORD GAMES

Robert Morgan

I. YOUR STAR WARS NAME GAME

You may already have seen this somewhere -- it's all over the internet -- but here's how it works. Using a simple formula, you change your name into a "Star Wars-like" name. There are several variations of the game. Here are several:

Take the first 3 letters of your first name. Add the last 2 letters of your last name. This is your Star Wars first name. Now take the first 2 letters of your mother's maiden name. Add the first 3 letters of the city you were born in. This is your Star Wars last name.

Using this formula, if your name is Albert Einstein, you'd take the first 3 letters of your first name: A L B

Then you'd add the last 2 letters of your last name I N , which would give you ALBIN

Now take the first two letters of your mother's maiden name. Offhand I don't know Albert Einstein's mother's maiden name. For the sake of argument, let's say it was Forten. We take F O

Einstein was born in ULM, Germany, so we take U L M. This makes his Star Wars last name as F O U L M

And his complete Star Wars name is ALBIN FOULM

Here's another variation which is supposedly George Lucas' formula for determining your Star Wars name:

To determine your first name take the first three letters of your last name. Add the first two letters of your first name.

To determine your last name: take the first two letters of your mother's maiden name

Add the first three letters of the town in which you were born.

Let's try Albert with this method:

From Albert's last name we take the first 3 letters: E I N

Then we add the first two letters of his first name A L and we get E I N A L

For his last name we take the first two letters of his mother's maiden name (which for argument we've called Forten) F O

And we add the first 3 letters of the town in which he was born, U L M and we end up with the last name F O U L M (same last name as the first method)

And the complete Star Wars name: EINAL FOULM

Obviously, you could make up any variation of this method.

To add a little variety, use a Star Wars title:

DARTH EINAL FOULM (note: Darth is an evil title)
GRAND MOFF EINAL FOULM (note: Grand Moff is an imperial, hence evil, title)
OBI-WAN EINAL FOULM (at least Obi-wan is an honorable title). Star Wars fanatics will remember other titles, too.

HOW DOES THIS HELP TEACHERS? Good question. I think that any time students are working with words, they're learning. You can't do too much word work or play. I also use this little game as part of a lesson on using capital letters in names. It just adds a little fun and a little variety.

II. JAR JAR BINKS AND OTHER STAR WARS NAMES.

The names of "Star Wars" characters are not random. Here's an explanation from George Lucas on how he created some of the names of the "Star Wars" characters. Lucas says that "Basically, I developed the names for the characters phonetically. I obviously wanted to telegraph a bit of the character in the name. The names needed to sound unusual but not spacey. I wanted to stay away from the kind of science fiction names like Zenon and Zorba. They had to sound indigenous and have consistency between their names and culture."

Darth Vader comes from German and means, roughly translated, "Dark Father."

Anakin Skywalker's name is composed of the name for a race of giants in the book of Genesis (Anakin) and "Skywalker," in addition to the obvious space travel connotations, refers to a Norse good known as a troublemaker.

Han Solo. Han is a derivative of John, a very common name. Solo certainly refers to Han's "go-it-alone" philosophy. Remember Napoleon Solo in "The Man from Uncle"?

Chewbacca. One is tempted to ask about chewing tobacco. Early cultural names refer to occupations or habits. Might we assume that one of Chewie's ancestors engaged in the habit of chewing tobacco?

Jar Jar Binks. By far one of the most interesting and controversial "Star Wars" characters. His language has a complete "grammar" and vocabulary already. Check this site for "Jar Jar" grammar and vocabulary.

HOW DOES THIS HELP TEACHERS? If you're studying any literature, you've got the beginning of a great discussion on naming characters. You might also find that the "grammar" for Jar Jar Binks is an interesting way to open discussion of grammar and vocabulary. Teachers looking to spark interest and motivation may have fun with this. You might also try creating your own "Star Wars" names for new fictional characters.

III. YODA'S UNIQUE SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Yoda, the great Jedi sage, uses unique sentence structure when he speaks. Here are a few "humorous" made up Yoda comments gleaned from the Web:

In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in the proper order then why can't he?

When 900 years old you reach, look as good, you will not. - Yoda

Yoda of Borg are we: Futile is resistance. Assimilate you, we will.

HOW DOES THIS HELP TEACHERS? Yoda's unique sentence construction provides an interesting method for teaching sentence structure. One of the tough concepts for kids to understand is sentence structure. A little analysis of Yoda's unique sentence structure should be helpful. If students have experience with a foreign language, you can open a discussion about word order and sentence structure differences among various languages.