Droids

[Whill]

Most droid model designations and specific character names come from the EU (which includes the RPGs).

The original film refers to R2-units, so it is clear from the beginning that the "R2" in Artoo's name is a model designation. Therefore, the "D2" is a more unique designation for that particular droid.

Isn't it odd then that the other characters refer to Artoo by his model and not his particular name "Detoo"? That tells me that in the SW film universe, it must be common to call all R2-units "R2" instead of differentiating between specific individual droids. Maybe that comes from the general attitude of droid inferiority among droid-owners? Or maybe because it is uncommon for most organics that deal with droids to work with more than one R2-unit, so individual designation is not really important?

However in the EU, other R2-units are (perhaps unanimously) individually referred to by names based on the specific designation component of their name (or some non-name nickname), instead of "Artoo". That seems to speak to the EU author's real world need to avoid confusion with R2-D2, but that doesn't seem to be consistent with the apparent in-universe practice of calling all R2-units "R2".

Anakin made C-3PO, but according to the EU, Anakin compiled components from various junked "3PO-series" droids. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of any incident in any of the films where they explicitly said "3PO-unit" or something indicating "3PO" is the droid model component of his name. Of course, since R2-D2 is called "Artoo" and C-3PO is called "Threepio", that would logically follow from the use of "R2-unit" that 3PO is the model designation of Threepio's name. But then in the beginning of TPM, the Trade Federation has a "3PO" series-looking droid named "TC-14".

"3PO-series" droid doesn't make sense to me, because if that were true then the letter "C" alone is the personal name component of that particular droid? It would make more sense if there were more unspoken letters/numbers to all specific droid character names.

But I'm still thinking that in my SW universe C-3PO will be a "C-series" droid and "3PO" is his personal designation (and therefore TC-14 is a "TC-series" droid). Maybe all R2-units are commonly called "R2" because of the immense popularity of R2-units? After all, a moisture farmer on the galactic fringe even mistakenly referred to an R5-unit as an "R2-unit". 8)

What do you guys think about droid character and model names?
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[Centinull]

Because of the wide variety of manufacturers, social customs, personal quirks, and what just rolls off the tongue, there is no standard format for naming droids or nick naming them.

Industrial Automata uses the prefix to denote model and suffix for individual identification, so "D2" might be a more accurate name for R2-D2, but look just started referring to him as "R2" and it stuck.

Cybot Galatica used the suffix to denote model and prefix to dentoe classifictation
"C"" Civillian ?
"M" Military
As for what luke called him, "3PO" just sounds better "C"

[DougRed4]

That's some really astute observations that I hadn't realized before, Whill (and in retrospect it's one of those things that I'm amazed we didn't discuss ad nauseum 'back in the day' after the first film).

I think Centinell nailed the most logical explanation, at least now looking back on three plus decades of these naming conventions, which haven't been very consistent.
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[Tinman]

How organics refer to droids is really just determined by the general attitude of any given organic toward droids, modified by their individual relationship with a specific droid.

Starfighter pilots who work with the same astromech all the time, and depend on that droid in tense situations on a regular basis, probably tend to become fond of their mechanical partner and might give them a nickname which has nothing at all to do with their model number or factory designation (just like they might do with a human copilot they're paired with all the time.) That same pilot might not even know the designation of any given power droid in the hanger where they're stationed and wouldn't bother to find out unless there was a problem with it which they needed to bring to the attention of a technician.

On the other hand, a lead technician aboard a capital ship who has to coordinate the efforts of multiple droids and organics would probably refer to any of the droids involved by their "formal" designation for the sake of brevity. (If there are multiple R2 units, they probably would just address them as "C8" or "M5" because "R2" would obviously create confusion and most technicians are probably prone to think of machines in those terms.)

The captain of a light freighter with a single maintenance droid aboard might address it as "hey you" or worse, depending on how cranky he is or how annoying he finds the droid.. or he might give it a pet name, teach it to play sabacc and engage in conversations with it (especially if he's a lone pilot who makes long runs) in a manner which would seem eccentric to most other people. Lone scouts are probably especially prone to anthropomorphizing the droids who accompany them.

Another factor is how complex the personality of a droid actually is. Fifth degree droids, for example, often are not given personality programming at all and aren't usually designed to be too bright outside the context of the tasks they're designed for. There's just not really much personality there for an organic to relate to. Many fourth degree droids are probably deliberately programmed to be very impersonal (at best) toward anyone but their owners, and behave in a no-nonsense, professional manner toward those they're supposed to be taking orders from. Even a droid designed with a complex personality, fresh out of its original packaging, isn't too unique or interesting until it's been in operation for a while and starts to develop an individual "character." Smart droid owners who've recognized that memory wiping droids makes them less effective (because they never get better at the things they do) might even make a point of being pleasant with them to encourage the formation of a more tolerable personality. (Memory wiping a droid to get rid of an irritating personality has the downside of also resetting all the droid's skills to factory default.) It's all likely to affect how an organic relates and refers to a droid they're familiar with.

A quote from Arthur C. Clarke's novel 3001: The Final Odyssey comes to mind:

"Illogical though it seemed, most of the human race had found it impossible not to be polite to its artificial children, however simple-minded they might be. Whole volumes of psychology, as well as popular guides (How Not to Hurt Your Computer's Feelings; Artificial Intelligence -- Real Irritation were two of the best-known titles) had been written on the subject of Man-Machine etiquette. Long ago it had been decided that, however inconsequential rudeness to robots might appear to be, it should be discouraged. All too easily, it could spread to human relationships as well."

[Whill]

So for Artoo, what rolls of the tongue from many human characters throughout the saga would naturally roll off the tongue for other R2-units, so realistically many R2 units around the galaxy would be called "R2". Which means the EU R2-units thus far would not really be a representative cross-section of R2 nicknames in the galaxy.

But for Threepio, that does sound like a better nickname, and a lone "C" wouldn't be the droid's individual designation, so for my SW universe I have changed it to C-3PO being a C-series protocol droid. TC-14 is a TC-series model. Works for me.
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[atgxtg]

In the OT, all the astormechs are reffered to as "R2s", including the red droid that has been considered to be an R5 in the RPG and EU.

It's possible (and probably likely) that in some cases the names o the more successful modles of droids have caught on to become generic terms for that general type of droid, much the way the term "Xerox" was used on Earth to refer to photcoping, and "Xerox Machine" used to refer to any photocopier.

That also might explain why they called R2-D2 "Artoo" in the films and not "Deetoo".

it's also possible that the "D2" might not actually be R2-D2's specific designation (in fact it seems rather unlikely considering how many R2-series droids there must be), but instead the D2 might be some sort of model designation. R2-D2's "name" is probably some sort of serial number- and nobody would probably want to go around saying that whenever they wanted to get their droid to do something.

Just think at how computers are named today.

[Whill]

[Tinman]

I would imagine you could instruct a droid to answer to any name you cared to use to address it. I can't imagine why manufacturers wouldn't make this a feature, given that there exist species which find it difficult or impossible to pronounce Basic. There probably is at least one Industrial Automaton R2 Astromech Droid out there which answers to "Goda Rata" or something in some dialect of Wookiee. I can do this with my cell phone, and it's not even artificially intelligent (no matter what it might happen to think. ) I imagine you can also program a droid to answer only to its owners voice and ignore all others (if this is not an included feature with fourth degree models, I would program it myself) or even refuse to respond to anything other than Binary (if you wanted to for some reason.) When droids talk amongst themselves in Binary, they may well refer to each other using their complete serial number, and consider that their "real" name instead of the cute nicknames organics tend to give them.

[Fallon Kell]

I think nicknames just happen, but I make sure that there are enough characters in all my unit designations to have unique ones for each.

It's possible that (BEWARE: HERESY AHEAD) D2 is just a sub-model of the R2 series, like LX is as in "Ford Taurus LX". For all we know, the droid we know as R2-D2 could be one of a billion R2-D2s, more correctly named R2-D2 #522X3-7L22C, and it's just by chance we never encounter another R2-D2 in any stories. (END HERESY)
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[Whill]

[Whill]

OK, now on to "Human-Cyborg Relations". Threepio is never portrayed as being involved in relations between humans and actual "cyborgs". And I thought I read that Threepio was assigned to the Tantive IV's droid pool, and perhaps he was a translator between humans and droids that speak non-human languages like Artoo.

If so, then it would seem that Threepio is using the word "Cyborg" to refer to droids. Cyborg is short for cybernetic organism, which means Threepio would be referring to droids as organisms. This would make sense from the view that Threepio considers droids to be a form of life. And maybe Alderaanians even refer to droids as cybernetic organisms as a recognition of droid sentience (even though the term organism is usually used to refer to a biological entity).

Cyborg meaning droid is the only thing that makes Threepio's introduction make sense to me. What do you guys think?
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[Fallon Kell]

[cheshire]

[Whill]

[Kytross]

Luke didn't know his droids long enough to come up with real nicknames for them. Uncle Owen bought them and died the next day. Additionally, these were the only droids of their type on the farm.

As far as the original trilogy goes, R2 was the only astromech left in TPM. No need to differentiate there. He became Padme's favorite droid and she never struck me as being particularly creative. Nor Anakin who named Threepio.

I kind of think of it as being alot like Bob. There's alot of Bobs out there, but normally I don't have to specify which Bob I'm talking about because I only know one Bob.