How do the EU authors come up with names?

I, for one, find this a very interesting area. A while ago I found out that Myrkr is an Old Icelandic word for "darkness", and after some research it seems that "vornskr" means something like "defender" in the same language. Does anyone know anything else about SW word/name etymologies?

 

As an author I say all they do is come up with names, for no reason really.

 

Mara means bitter, and she certainly is bitter in TTT.

 

Doesn't Vergere mean something rather pertinent in Latin? Like, "changer" or something?

 

There's a lot of websites out there that claim Star Wars names comes from articles of cultural importance around the world, I believe.

Darth, one site claims, is some variant of the word dark. Vader, that same site claimed, is from the Swedish word for father.

Anakin, I believe, was said to be one, or only, or of no family. Something to that effect.

I think you can find these sort of items on various search engines, including Google.com.

While on this topic, I came across a few sites that claimed that Darth comes from DARk lord of siTH. If you consider the capatilized letters, you get the word Darth.
Does anyone know if that's how Darth really came into existence?

 

That's really cool, valyn.

 

Valyn, that question hasn't been answered yet to my knowledge. Its been plaugeing fans since we knew Darth Vaders name, probibally.

 

It depends on the author, really. For example, Tim Zahn makes a lot of normal names into star wars names by changing the spelling, or taking words that normally aren't names into words. For example, "Billie" and "Aves."

I'm fairly certain Michael Kube-McDowell just slams his forehead into his keyboard and takes the result. Also, he seems to dislike vowels, and is rather fond of apostrophe's. For example, "Jp't'n."

 

lol! It's probable.

 

Furthermore, a fairly obvious one is Han Solo's name. We all know what the meaning of the word Solo is, and that name seems to fit Han's personality fairly well.


This site helps with establishing a "Star Wars name".
http://www.creativeteachingsite.com/starwars.htm


One site claims that Qui Gon Jinn is from the name of an old Chinese general, I believe.

Here's a similar site:
http://themoviezone.com/The_Hidden_Meaning_of_the_names_in_Star_Wars.htm


This is perphaps a more effective one:
http://www.wcug.wwu.edu/~paradox/origins.html

 

Thanks, valyn.

 

No problem.

That's really odd about that Darth thing, though, isn't it? Dark Lord of Sith...