Lit Droids and their Names

So the other night I was thinking about droids. There are thousands of R2 droids in the galaxy. What are of the odds of one of them being named R2-D2? Like do the droid's number depend on who built them and what planet?

 

I think they are based on the model-there are R3s and R4 lines of the astromech model.

Most droids probably have a numerical identification tied to their model and owner I would think.

 

It may well be that R2's serial number is R2 (model #)-D2XX:####:XXXX:##XX:XX##:####:XXXX:##XX. A longer alpha numeric serial number. He is referred to by R2-D2 less formally and nicknamed Artoo.

 

Yeah that's probably accurate as well.

 

That was always my assumption as well.

Almost related to the topic of droid names, I always loved the moment in TPM where the Queen asks Panaka what Artoo's number is and Panaka reads it off a spot on Artoo's torso, as if Artoo had a little nameplate or something there (despite there clearly being nothing written in the spot Panaka is looking at). I don't know why, it's just a weird little moment that makes me smile.

 

I feel like that would be more plausible if it were only R2-D2 and C-3PO that got nicknames based on their abbreviated serial number. But we have droids all over the place like R5-G8, R4-P17, etc...and if everybody's using this scheme for naming their droids then you'd run out of nicknames very fast. The fact that R2-D2 is shortened even further to just R2 makes it even worse...what if Luke is in the Echo Base hangar, calls for R2, and gets greeted by R2-Z9, R2-Q4, R2-F3, and R2-K1?

 

That is all dependent on the owners preference...in the movies we see that quick abbreviation of their model...in the EU we see them have other nicknames like Whistler and Shiner.

As far as droids being called the same thing....how many people on the planet share your first name.

 

Another interesting development that started in TCW and has continued into the canon era are certain droids that appear to have actual names - Kalani, Huyang - rather than alphanumeric designations. It would be interesting to learn more about that at some point.

 

That could be because their owner decided to name them. Wild animals don't have names while pets do.

 

I actually have a theory about that. I think Panaka looked at that spot in the expectation that he would find a name or number there, but didn't see anything. He didn't want to look like an idiot in front of the Queen, so he just said the first random thing that came to his mind, R2-D2. That's how he got his name.

 

Could be. Right now in canon, we have five examples of "named" droids that I'm aware of (could be more but these are the ones that I recall). Three of them are CIS super tactical droids - Kalani, Kraken, and Tey-Zuka. Another is Huyang, who is clearly unique among droids due to his age, authority, and degree of reverence within the Jedi Order. And then there's Cator, the droid who guarded Jocasta Nu's vault. Admittedly Cator might be a nickname for K-TOR or KTR or something along those lines - unfortunately he doesn't last long enough for us to get to know him very well. I wonder if he dated back to the beginning of the Republic the way Huyang did?

I don't know what we can draw from all that in terms of conclusions. Not all super tactical droids receive names - there's at least one counter-example I'm aware of (unless "Aut-O" is a name and not an alphanumeric). And obviously, not all Jedi droids have names. For now I suppose it's just an interesting oddity - maybe someone will have an opportunity to ask Dave Filoni about it sometime.

 

Chopper counts as a nicknamed droid right?

 

And Bollux.

 

Yeah, droids with actual names would make more sense, but as far as I can tell they're the exception rather than the rule. Though I suppose we could just a bit of a mental retcon and imagine that what's been depicted doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

 

Artoo and Threepio sound like their numerical designation - R2 and 3PO. But lately the nicknames have gotten farther from their designation, Chopper is C1-1OP which really doesn't sound like "Chopper" at all. BB-8 is just called "BB-8" (or Beebee Eight) all the time (Which is fine, it's a short name). However, I could have sworn that Alan Dean Foster called BB-8 "Bee Bee" a few times in the TFA novelization which thankfully didn't seem to stick.

And if we're saying R2 has a longer designation, you'd figure BB-8 would have one too cuz that's an even shorter number of varriable name since they're BB units designated BB. (although the First Order droid called BB-9e does open up possibilities with number / letter designations)

 

There's a problem with R-series droids when it comes to designation. Ideally, any droid whose "name" starts with R4- shoudl belong to the the R4-series, right? Yeah, it should. But TCW went all over the place, with R2-series unit bearing names starting with R4-, R7-, R8-...

 

1-1 looks like an H (High Galactic alphabet)

See it now

 

Ooooohhhhhhhhhh

 

OH MY GOD HOW HAVE I BEEN SO BLIND

 

We all just learned something today!

I guess that may have been mentioned on a Rebels Recon and I just plum forgot or it's sourced from elsewhere but I get it.

 

You know, with astromechs in particular there was a general sense perpetrated by the old EU that the R2, R4, R5 etc. astromechs could be identified basically by head shape... except that the droid Kenner identified as "R5-D4" was literally said within the film to be an "R2 unit". Seems like it went like this:

1) In ANH these droids were called "Astro droids" or "R2 units"
2) Kenner names the red R2 unit "R5-D4"
3) EU starts codifying astromech subgroups by head shape (except for the R1 which I don't think was really supposed to be an astromech but some kind of war droid with a cannon on its head, but whatever). Just noticed that Wookieepedia still considers this system canon somehow, despite all the following...
4) Starting in AOTC we see astromechs with names that don't match those head shapes, leading to odd retcons about rebuilds etc.
5) TCW (straddling old and new canon) offers more of the same up until the "D-squad" arc where, to allow they audience to keep track of astromech droid protagonists, they totally throw the whole "R-series" thing out the window with basic astromechs whose names start with M, U, and Q.
6) Ah, the hell with it. New canon comes up with a bunch of new and old astromech units with other model names which is cool; we just never really sorted out the R-series thanks to weird choices in the EU and main LFL canon alike. But we got the C1 series on one end, the BB series on the other, and RESISTANCE looks like it's adding a whole bunch of new distinct series too, so that's fun.

 

You know what, maybe this is just something that's better if we don't think too hard about it. If we actually came up with a stringent and consistent naming scheme for droids that authors need to adhere to, that would probably just create a headache for everyone.

 

If Wook does it, it's because there are new canon sources that keep mentioning the system. Despite all the following. This is not the wikia's invention.

 

The Adventure Journal article "The History of R-Series Astromech Droids" by Pablo is a foundational text here - the first time there ever was an attempt to classify which astromechs were "R1"s, which were "R2"s, etc. (It's also the first reference I'm aware of to the R1 actually being called an R1 - had they received any sort of background info before that?)

 

There was an R1 card in Decipher's Star Wars Customizable Card Game. I'm not sure, however, if that came out before the aforementioned Adventure Journal article or not.