Saga "Darth" is a first name, not a title

Proof? This exchange, from a slightly earlier draft of Attack of the Clones:

"Forename" is just another way of saying "first name." It's a synonym.

Now obviously this never made it into the movie, but I think it's pretty good evidence of Lucas's thinking on the matter. This is why Ben calls his former apprentice "Darth" in A New Hope. The original reason is because "Darth" was his first name, and that's still the reason, only now there's a more mocking undertone.

Whenever a person is inducted into the Sith cult, they discard their old name and adopt a new one. All Sith share the same first name. It's just the way things work. It's sort of like how every member of the Ramones changed their last name to Ramone (except with the Sith there's a little less punk rock and a lot more mass murder).

Darth Vader is a Dark Lord of the Sith. His title is "Lord." His first name is "Darth." That's why, after christening him, Sidious only ever refers to him formally as "Lord Vader." If "Darth" was a formal title as well, you'd assume Sidious would just call him "Darth Vader." But he doesn't.

Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith. Lord Vader. Lord Darth Vader. Any objections?

 

Could be like how in East Asian countries the 'family' name comes prior to the personal name, with Darth as a common Sith surname.

One thing I was thinking about earlier too: Tyranus is the only sith lord never to be actually called the full Darth Tyranus at any point, in either the films or TCW. Rather odd distinction for him to have, but somewhat fitting since he has a very public perona separate from his covert Sith identity.

 

I always just assumed Darth was a contraction of "Dark Lord of the Sith." Eh, if anything, it being a de facto first name makes Obi-Wan's "Only a master of evil, Darth" sound less weird in retrospect.

 

Imagine if the Sith had gone with the bylaw that all their members must have the first name "Steve".

 

I think the point was that (in the early draft) the Kaminoans mistook "Darth" for a regular first name, and Yoda is commenting on that.

 

What makes Obi-Wan's address in the first film so jarring is that nobody in later movies uses "Darth" in that way. Vader is always addressed as "Lord Vader", or "Darth Vader", suggesting them as synonymous titles, in the way that French & German "count" is the equivalent of English "earl". (Players of Battlefront 2 might remember a translated news bulletin that referred to "Earl Dooku". )

Vader calls himself "Lord Darth Vader" in the 1975 second draft, but this didn't make it to the screen. And in the rough draft from the previous year, "Darth Vader" is unquestionably the first & last name of an Imperial general, but he isn't a Sith.

The 1974 rough draft also refers to "the Knights of Sith," but they're an order of elite warriors who serve the Empire, rather than a group of dark Force users: more like the Imperial Knights from Dark Horse's Legacy comics. The Knights of Ren from the ST have a name that follows this pattern, though they all apparently have the same last name of "Ren", which wasn't the case with the Sith from the 1974 draft.

Early drafts of ANH do include other Dark Lords of the Sith, but they're mostly unnamed, so the matter of whether all Sith Lords have the same first name is left unclear. It was the prequels which first brought to public notice the idea that somebody named "Darth" is automatically a Sith.

There is one exception: in the 1975 second draft, Vader names his master as "Prince Espaa Valorum, Master of the Bogan." Which suggests the idea that all Sith have the same first name evolved organically from the usage of "Darth" seen in the OT (to which Obi-Wan's address is a striking exception).

 

That doesn't strike me at all as being the most reasonable interpretation of that exchange. Yoda is just commenting on what the forename "Darth" implies. There's nothing at all to indicate that the Kaminoans were confused. All the stuff about "Darth" being a title is just EU stuff. It's not in the movies, and there's not really anything in the movies to support it beyond the fact that multiple Sith Lords share it.

In the real world, that's at least part of the explanation:

“That’s just another one of those things that came out of thin air. It sort of appeared in my head one day. I had lots of Darth this and Darth that, and Dark Lord of the Sith. The early name was actually Dark Water. Then I added lots of last names, Vaders and Wilsons and Smiths, and I just came up with the combination of Darth and Vader.”

-- George Lucas, The Making of Star Wars

Either way, it was of course originally supposed to be a first name, which is why Obi-Wan seems to treat it that way. Contrary to popular belief, though, Lucas never retconned that aspect. He just made it an adopted name.

I don't recall anyone ever addressing him as "Darth Vader" in a formal capacity, especially not a subordinate. The only time he is referred to as "Darth Vader" is in contexts when it would make sense for him to be identified by his full name.

"Darth" isn't a title. That's why everyone calls him "Lord Vader."

 

True. But if you discount Obi-Wan's usage of "Darth" in the first film, everyone else treats "Darth" in a way that suggests it could be a title instead of a first name. It's ambiguous.

"Darth" as a first name of Vader's adopted alter ego makes a lot of sense, at least in the OT where no other Sith are named. But it's very odd to call it a first name rather than a title if all the Sith have it as part of their names.

It was a first name in the OT; it became a title with the prequels.

 

As contractions of "Dark Lord of the Sith" it makes sense for both "Darth" and "Lord" to be used, but for them never to be used together.

 

It means "I hate sand."

 

Well, the Sith wasn't established yet in the OT saga, so it wouldn't make sense to use it as a reference, after all we don't even hear the word of ''Sith'' in the OT not even once.

I think the main idea was that it was Anakin's new name after he turned to the dark side, but then they decided to name all the Sith lords after Darth Vader. Darth X, Darth ZY etc.

If it was a name, then Maul would still continue to use that ''name'', but since it's a title, he isn't using it after losing his place in the Sith Order.



''Formerly Darth, now just Maul.''

 

The Zygerrians used a name "Darts".

Lucas started the Darth meant Dark background, cause he played on the similarities between Vader and the Vater where it became "Dark Father" for him publicly at that time. The father theme became very important to him, by the time he was making the prequels obviously- probably also before when he settled on Vader being the father back with ESB. But that is not likely for a few reasons, major ones being that Lucas made it up as went along. The earliest scripts had Darth Vader as just a general.

Maybe "Vader" is a take off of "Invader", being that Vader was originally a general , maybe dark invader made sense, since he dressed in black even. I think that would make more sense than Sidious pulling "Vader" out've Dutch or German languages, just to call him a Father in another language aside from Basic(English), sick sense of humor or not, its pretty dumb. If anything Sheev Palpatine would've called him father in Hindu or Latin, since Naboo were like a mix of Roman and Indian names and culture. It just doesn't jive.

Sith names are strange, including some of the new canon ones, many dont make sense and you have really work hard to make sense out've many of them if you can. Word had it that Lucas offered two possible names for Vader's apprentice while TFU was in development back in 2005: Darth Insanius and Darth Icky.(Darth Phobos and Darth Desolous are pure genius by comparison).

https://www.gameinformer.com/b/feat...-down-a-legendary-studio.aspx?PostPageIndex=2

Probably depends on when and who creates the Sith names,lol.

 

Does the title "Dark Lord of the Sith" apply to all Sith Lords? In AOTC, Yoda says, "Only the Dark Lord of the Sith knows of our weakness," which I interpreted to mean only one person. So I thought that while "Sith Lord" can apply to both the master and the apprentice, "Dark Lord of the Sith" can only refer to the master.

 

Lol, I can't believe I never saw it that way.

Dark Lord of the Sith has traditionally referred to the Sith in charge of all other Sith. In the movies, its use is reserved exclusively for Darth Sidious (although he did have a rival for the title during the Clone Wars in the form of Darth Maul).

 

Following on from my earlier post: the off-screen character of "Espaa Valorum" from the 1975 second draft is probably the genesis of the idea of Darth Vader being secretly a Skywalker. In that draft, Vader dies during the climactic Death Star battle, with Valorum probably planned to take over his role in sequels.

Also in that draft, Luke Starkiller's father is the progenitor of a whole extended family of Starkiller siblings. It stands to reason that "Espaa Valorum" might be one of them, who changed his name and joined the Empire rather than fighting against it.

Not only is "Valorum" a name retained from the 1974 rough draft, where it was used for a noble Sith who defects from the Empire; "Espaa" derives from French espoir, "hope", alluding to a possible redemption arc. To paraphrase William Shakespeare, "such hope have all the line of Starkiller."

 

This thread reminds me of something I've never actually understood in both Canon and Legends. How come most Sith have the Darth name, but some don't like Exar Kun in Legends and Momin in Canon? I don't recall ever hearing an explanation on that but I'd be interested to hear it if there is one.

 

Xar Kun was written before the PT was a thing and nobody knew it came with the Dark Lord gig and Momin thinks he is above all dark lords so didn't bother to take on a Sith moniker.

 

We didn't hear the word Sith, but they were definately established at the time of the OT, as the name even appears in the scripts of the OT.

Does it though?
The script for ANH introduces Vader in the following way: "The awesome, seven-foot-tall Dark Lord of the Sith makes his way into the blinding light of the main passageway. This is Darth Vader, right hand of the Emperor."

Doesn't mean that things couldn't have changed later on, but at that point Vader was the Dark Lord, not Palpatine, who wasn't even a Sith yet. Either this whole thing changed once Palpatine became the Sith Master, or Palpatine never really bothered with titles like that, preferred to keep his identity a secret and have Vader be the "official" Dark Lord. Not that either of the two would run around and use that title

 

As the ANH novelization infamously says, "Fear followed the footsteps of all the Dark Lords."

 

That's right, the word Sith wasn't in the movie, but it showed up often in supplemental materials, interviews with GL, and the novelization. Sith were a known SW thing even before SW first opened.

 

And it was part of some filmed-but-deleted dialogue by General Tagge during the conference room scene: "This Sith Lord sent by the Emperor will be our undoing."

 

My point is that if "Darth" were a title, everyone would just call him "Darth Vader." There's no reason to introduce a second title that all his subordinates use exclusively in favor of "Darth." It's superfluous.

That seems a little thin to me. I think the genesis of Darth Vader being a Skywalker came as a result of him ending up as a cyborg just like the father in the rough draft, as well as being a Sith Lord, who in that same draft was to be the subject of a redemption arc. There's the fact that his backstory was virtually identical to that of Father Skywalker save for him turning evil (former Jedi, close companion of Ben Kenobi, exceptional pilot). And in addition to being established in the first film as essentially the evil version of Father Skywalker, Vader is also positioned as the evil counterpart of the father figure Ben Kenobi. It's also interesting to note that there were articles written as early as 1977 noting the association between the words "Vader" and "father," so even though that was certainly not the actual genesis of the name "Vader," it's a connection that Lucas may have subsequently noticed and been influenced by (hence his insistence that that's actually what it means).

Taken together, the true identity of Darth Vader seems almost inevitable. Almost as if he was the father even before Lucas consciously decided to make him the father.

 

Right, he was always going to be a father figure. But before ESB it's far more likely that it would've been expressed by another familial connection: something like Vader being Luke's older brother, or Ben Kenobi's son.

And I agree with you about "Darth" being a first name... as far as the OT goes. In the prequels it's basically treated like a title. That exchange from the AOTC script seems to be little more than an echo of the earlier usage. Maybe that's why it didn't survive the editing room.

 

Like darkspine10 mentioned it could have be a Last/Clan name, at first.
Wasnt GL inspired by Japanese/Samurai stuff when he made EPIV?
Also characters often get called by their lastname in movies.

 

Yep, Darth is not and never was a title. Lord is the title of the Sith.