Star Wars: Rey Skywalker’s Name was Almost… Winkie (Seriously)

Lucasfilm Creative Executive Pabli Hidalgo had just released his new book called Star Wars: Fascinating Facts, and the book is full of interesting trivia about the making of Star Wars. What's interesting is, we get an inside look at the creation of Rey as a character, and though we know she was supposed to be Kira at some point, she had a bunch of other names that were being considered.

As Hidalgo writes in his book (via @Oozer):

In George Lucas' original outline, [Rey] was a 14-year-old girl named Taryn. In his subsequent iterations, she would briefly be named Thea and—believe it or not—Winkie. When writer/director J.J. Abrams came aboard, he simplified the names to placeholders… Thea became Sally… as the film neared production, Sally became Kira (which stuck as the production code name), then Echo, and finally Rey.

We know that Lucas has always had a penchant for weird names in Star Wars, but I'm curious just how seriously he was considering the name Winkie. I guess it can be the name for some quirky girl character, but the next lead for Star Wars? Rey was the best choice.

For now, it looks like the story of Rey Skywalker is over, but a lot of fans still want to see more of the cast of the Sequel Trilogy down the line. By now, hopefully, Lucasfilm will know better when it comes to navigating the toxic fanbase, and we can get back to having some original, creative storytelling. Hopefully, the actors will be onboard as well, but judging how terrible the fans have been treating them, I don't think they'll be so keen to return so soon.

The next Star Wars property, The Mandalorian Season 2, premieres on Disney+ on Oct. 30. Hidalgo's Star Wars: Fascinating Facts is now available.

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