Did George Lucas Name Luke Skywalker After Himself?

Since the day I was born, I’ve been inundated with “Star Wars.” I’ve seen the movies dozens of times, can quote them by heart, am wearing a “Star Wars” T-shirt right now, and own multiple lightsabers. But it wasn’t until earlier this morning that I realized George Lucas named Luke Skywalker after himself… And why that revelation is shockingly important.

Just imagine: this basic fact of “Star Wars” lore, that Lucas gave his main character his own name, never occurred to me before… Mainly because I needed the right context. That context was over breakfast this morning, when my six-year-old daughter — who has seen all the movies at this point, and likes “Star Wars” though frankly is a bigger fan of “Harry Potter” — accidentally said “LukeFilm” instead of “LucasFilm.”

I was about to correct her, when suddenly it felt like a bomb had exploded in my head. It was like “A Beautiful Mind” times a thousand, as decades of lies came crashing down upon me.

Luke Skywalker. Luke S. LUCAS.

How had I missed this simple, completely obvious connection for literally decades? Was I like Luke himself, desperately trying to ignore the evidence in front of me when told Darth Vader was my father? I didn’t even need to search my feelings, just a simple word jumble style puzzle. And yet, it took a simple mistake from an innocent child to show me the truth.

It all made sense now, and the further I delved into it (don’t worry, I finished breakfast with my daughter and got her to school before doing the research) confirmed that A) this is probably totally true, and B) I’m definitely not the first person to think of it, though no one has explored the possibility with Lucas himself*.

First piece of evidence? It’s a pretty well known piece of “Star Wars” lore, but Luke’s original name was Luke Starkiller. Lucas changed it because he thought Starkiller sounded a little too aggressive, specifically reminding him of Charles Manson, so he changed the name to Skywalker.

Either way, the name is still “Luke S.” and clearly inspired by the man’s own last name.

[Side note: in case you didn’t know the above fact, yes, J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan used the last name Starkiller as their inspiration for the mega-Death Star, called Starkiller Base, in “The Force Awakens.”]

Or maybe not? According to a 1997 article in The New York Times, Luke’s name was created to be the opposite of Darth Vader’s. Another common piece of “Star Wars” lore, but we all should have seen the “I am your father,” reveal coming based on Darth’s name roughly translating in Dutch to “Dark Father.” The Times also noted that Vader’s last name Skywalker was a title given to the Norse trickster god, Loki… Which doesn’t really seem like Darth Vader other than his tricky actions towards the end of “Empire Strikes Back,” but we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Luke, they added, was inspired by the Greek “leukos” meaning “light.” Which is meant to be the opposite of Darth Vader, but try saying leukos out loud. Go on. Sounds a lot like “Lucas,” right? That’s because Lucas is leukos (or according to Ancestry.com the related word Loukas) in Greek, meaning a “man from Luciana”… Which is a city that’s name means “bright” or “shining.”

Short version: Luke, Lucas, leukos… It’s all the same thing.

I saved the best piece of evidence for last, though despite a ton of Internet sleuthing I can’t find a good original source for this bit. Regardless, according to multiple sites, Lucas’ high school nickname was reportedly… Luke.

So was Luke Skywalker named after George Walton Lucas, Jr.? Whether he meant it or not, it seems pretty clear that he took at least part, if not all of the inspiration from his last name. And there’s one last little twist that makes this “stunning” revelation particularly interesting and relevant today.

If you can push your mind back to a month ago, before we were all upset about “Star Wars” Monopoly pieces, before everyone was arguing about Rey’s parentage, and before we were already fed up with everyone’s Supreme Leader Snoke theories**. If you can go back to that faraway, more innocent time, you may vaguely remember the uproar that occurred when some audience members exiting “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” complained that Rey was a “Mary Sue.”

My basic frustration with the argument, which is (somehow) still continuing a month later, is that most of those complainers had no idea about the real definition of a Mary Sue. Yes, it’s a ridiculously perfect character who can do anything and no harm comes to (which is decidedly untrue about Rey); but a Mary Sue is also a proxy for the author… The closer to the author themselves, the more wish-fulfillment they get from the piece of fiction they’ve created, the better.

And sure, a lot of people shot back that Luke was a wish-fulfillment character in the original movies, even more than Rey; but there’s one key element that was left out of this argument, and that’s everything I wrote above about Luke’s secret nomenclature. Rey isn’t a Mary Sue because of her capabilities, or wish-fulfillment powers, or any number of other arguments. She’s not a Mary Sue because, unless there’s something we don’t know, bespectacled older white man J.J. Abrams does not secretly think he’s a teenage girl. Hey, it’s not like he named her Reybrams or anything, right?

On the other hand, Luke is Lucas. Not just in terms of the wishin’ and hopin’ and dreamin’, but his very name. Luke is the author’s proxy, and is the technical and actual definition of a Mary Sue.

And all I had to do to get to this conclusion was create a real human being who looks, acts, and thinks like me, that I named, and is able to solve all the puzzles I was never smart enough to tackle during my own childhood!

*Mr. Lucas, if you want to discuss please e-mail me at azalben (at) gmail (dot) com. Looking forward to your reply!

**Here’s my theory: Supreme Leader Snoke is secretly a being known throughout the “Star Wars” galaxy as Supreme Leader Snoke. That’s it. Bye.