Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni – the duo behind monster hit Star Wars series The Mandalorian – have been speaking to StarWars.com about the gestation of Baby Yoda, and specifically his name. Favreau also controversially describes him as “ugly-cute,” which will have Grogu stans banging at his door.
Filoni directed Season 2, Chapter 13 which first revealed Grogu’s name to the world, thanks to Ahsoka Tano. “It was good to have Ahsoka there cause she’s a good balancing point,” Filoni says. “Mando at first reacted like the audience. ‘Grogu? That’s strange.’ But when he says it, Grogu looks at him. And I always related to that too when I have a dog and the dog starts to learn its name. You say its name, it looks at you, it’s the most heartwarming thing.”
Favreau added; “It’s not a cute little name and then, you know, he’s as old as Yoda and he still has a weird, cute name, ‘Sparky.’ You know you don’t want to be ‘Sparky’ and be like 600 years old. It was also hard because no matter what we named him, it wasn’t going to be — it couldn’t be — Baby Yoda.”
They also discussed keeping Baby Yoda a secret until the first season premiere, leading him to become the fan-favourite Mandalorian character. “The Baby Yoda reveal was very organic to the story. And just the idea of surprising to make it a bit of a left turn to people’s expectations that this was going to be a guy runnin’ and gunnin’ through the galaxy. That was a nice twist. And I’m really happy that [everyone] supported us keeping that a secret. We put the audience experience first there,” says Favreau.
We’ve been keeping you up-to-date with The Mandalorian season 3 with our episode recaps. And we’ve also got guides that further explain Elia Kane and Doctor Pershing. We also explain the Mines of Mandalore.