J.J. Abrams' penchant for keeping secrets can be annoying, but it works perfectly for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a film that its most die hard fans are going to want to go into fresh. One of the big secrets revolves around the characters' many colorful names. If Star Wars is about anything it's about legacy, and names have incredible value. Just look at what the name "Skywalker" means across the Star Wars universe. And now we're learning a bit more about what value the names in Star Wars: The Force Awakens may have.
EW caught up with Abrams and asked him about the character names, and really it turns out that only a few have significant meaning, and of course those are being kept a mystery. Let's start with those...
Kylo Ren: Adam Driver stars as the masked villain Kylo Ren, whose crossguard lightsaber has caused quite a stir among fans. What we know about him is still limited, and hopefully will remain that way, but we know that he earned his name upon joining the order known as the Knights of Ren, and that he is aligned with The First Order, which is what the Empire has evolved into. Abrams says the film "explains the origins of the mask and where it’s from, but the design was meant to be a nod to the Vader mask. Ren is well aware of what’s come before, and that’s very much a part of the story of the film.”
Finn and Rey: John Boyega and Daisy Ridley star as the film's young protagonists, Finn and Rey, and according to Abrams they only have first names for a very specific reason. He says, “I will only say about that that it is completely intentional that their last names aren’t public record." That means they probably have connections to an established Star Wars family. Of course many will jump to assume Finn is related to Lando Calrissian, but hopefully they decided on something less obvious.
The rest are less interesting, really. Oscar Isaac's pilot, Poe Dameron, got his surname from Abrams' assistant, Morgan Dameron. Abrams adds that the name "just felt musically right", and that it may have felt right because his daughter "had a polar bear named Poe [or Po’ — short for “polar”]".
The bouncy little spherical droid, BB-8, got its name because of its round-shaped appearance. “I named him BB-8 because it was almost onomatopoeia,” the director says. “It was sort of how he looked to me, with the 8, obviously, and then the 2 B’s.”
It's interesting where the name for Gwendoline Christie's chrome-plated trooper Captain Phasma comes from, considering there was already a Star Wars character with that name in the novels. "Phasma I named because of the amazing chrome design that came from Michael Kaplan’s wardrobe team,” says Abrams. "It reminded me of the ball in Phantasm, and I just thought, Phasma sounds really cool.”
Abrams has no clear explanation for the origin of Domhnall Gleeson's First Order leader, General Hux, saying it came about during a conversation with writer/producer Lawrence Kasdan. “Larry and I would walk all over the place when we were breaking the story, and we would record our conversations. We were walking through a cemetery that’s near the Bad Robot offices, and we would often, as we were talking about characters, sort of just be glancing at names to see if any of them stuck. I don’t believe that Hux came from there, but it may have.”
Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens Dec. 18th.
