Tatooine names 

fialleril:

One of the ways the depuran (the masters) try to keep control of their slaves is by a practice called “namelessness” - a young child, before the age of memory, will be sold away from their family, stripped of their last name (and, often, their first name is changed), and have all identifying records destroyed. There will be no way for the child and their family to find one another again.

These children typically grow up with only one name. But they’ve developed the practice of self-naming. The nameless ones, those whose names have been stolen, take names for themselves - they create their own identities and families and communities.

Often, these names, especially the surnames, will be in Basic, and they’ll be things that sound poetic and very distinctly Tatooine. Sometimes the import is obvious even in Basic, but often it’s hidden. The true secret is that all of these names are translations into Basic from the secret language, and most of these choice-names have a very pointed meaning.

They’re names like Whitesun (a reference, in the secret language, to the strength of the suns at the height of the day, and the power traditionally believed to bring sandstorms) or Darklighter (which is evident even in Basic, but is more particular in the secret language: Darklighter is one of the epithets of Ar-Amu) or Moonspinner (another name of Ar-Amu).

(And yes, in my headcanon both Beru Whitesun and Biggs Darklighter and his family are descended from emancipated slaves.)

And, of course, there’s Skywalker.

Skywalker is a translation of Ekkreth, the trickster and folk-hero of the Tatooine slaves. The one who walks the sky, the one who has never been caught, the one whom no chains can hold, the one who laughs at all bonds, the one who is parent to Krayt Dragon.

Shmi Skywalker’s great-great-grandmother named herself Skywalker, and there is a family legend that Ekkreth loves the Skywalkers for this, and that Ekkreth’s spirit lives in all of them, so that all the Skywalkers are, to a certain degree, tricksters.

 
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