Find Your Star Wars Name
Using this simple formula you can change your boring every day name to some racy Star Wars like name. There are several versions of this game, and here are only a few:
Star Wars Word Game 1
Take the first 3 letters of your first name. Then add the last 2 letters of your last name. Behold: 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. Behold: your Star Wars last name!
Let's do a practice run. Suppose your name is Justin Bieber. Using this formula:
- take the first 3 letters of your first name: J U S
- add the last 2 letters of your last name: E R, giving JUSER
- take the first two letters of your mother's maiden name. If that was Mallette, it would be: MA
- If you were born in, say, Stratford, taking the first 3 letters gives you STR. This means your Star Wars last name is MASTR
Your complete Star Wars name is... JUSER MASTR. And guess which website you find when you search for "JUSER MASTR". Almost Juice Master, but not quite.
Star Wars Word Game 2
Here is another variation that George Lucas (allegedly) created to determine your Star Wars name. To determine your first name take the first 3 letters of your last name. Now add the first 2 letters of your first name. To contruct your last name, take the first 2 letters of your mother's maiden name. Add the first 3 letters of the town in which you were born. Let's work our magic on Justin Bieber again:
- From Justin's last name we take the first 3 letters: BIE
- Then we add the first 2 letters of his first name: JU and we get BIEJU
- For the last name we take the first 2 letters of Justin's mother's maiden name (Mallete): MA
- If we now add the first 3 letters of the town in which he was born (STR) and we end up with the last name MASTR (this gives the same last name as the first method)
Your Star Wars name using this method is BIEJU MASTR.
You get the idea. And once you've got the idea, you realise that you can make up your own variations on this theme.
To add some variety, you can start introducing some Star Wars titles like Darth, Grand or Obi Wan. How do the following sound?
- Darth Juser Mastr
- Grand Juser Mastr
- Obi Wan Juser Mastr
Educational Value
"But how does this help teachers?", I hear you cry. Any time students are working with words, they're learning. You can never do too much word work/word play. You can use this game to reinforce the use of using capital letters in names.
George Lucas On Names
George Lucas had his own unique method for generating the names of Star Wars characters. According to Lucas
'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 . . .. They had to sound indigenous and have consistency between their names and their culture.'
Darth Vader originates loosely 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 god known for being a troublemaker.
Han Solo. Han is a derivative of John, a very common name. Solo is definitely linked to Han's "go-it-alone" philosophy. Could Lucas be striving for an association with Napoleon Solo in "The Man from Uncle"?
Chewbacca. One phrase that immediately springs to (my) mind is "chewing tobacco". Early cultural names refer to occupations or habits. Could 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 is Jar Jar Binks. His language has a complete "grammar" and vocabulary.
Educational Value
And how does this help teachers? If you're studying any literature, the above gives alludes to the beginning of a great discussion about naming characters. An exploration of Jar Jar Binks' grammar is an interesting way to open discussion of grammar and vocabulary. Teachers wanting to spark interest and motivation may have fun with this. You coul also try creating your own "Star Wars" names for new fictional characters.
Odd Sentence Structure
Yoda, the great Jedi sage, uses unique sentence structure when he speaks. Here are a few quaotes that might have been uttered by Yoda - but which weren't:
- 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 of Borg are we: Futile is resistance. Assimilate you, we will.
Do you see what's going on here? Could you craete a few Yoda quotes yourself?
Educational Value
Yoda's unique sentence construction provides an interesting method for teaching sentence structure. A tough concept for kids to understand is sentence structure. A little analysis of Yoda's "method" should be helpful. If students have experience with a foreign language, you can commence a discussion about word order and sentence structure differences among various languages.