Source
r/MawInstallation•
frezik

What are X-Wings, Y-Wings, etc. named after?

The most common alphabet we've seen in Star Wars is Aurebesh. There are no "X" shapes in it. The "Vev" character is shaped like a "Y", and "Osk" and "Xesh" look something like an A-Wing. "Aurek" has a "K" shape. Other starfighters with this naming convention, like the B and T-Wing, don't have any clear candidates.

There are a few lesser known alphabets. Domabesh is squared off and doesn't fit any starfighters very well. Dishabesh has an "A" character that looks like a "K".

Even among starfighters with some kind of matching shape, it's not a clean mapping of the character's name to the name of the ship. There doesn't seem to be any in-universe way to match a starfighter's name to an alphabet that we know about.

Perhaps the names don't even come from an alphabet?

Posted Apr 18, 2023, 12:20 PM UTC

22863
CousinDwight•

The High Galactic (Latin) alphabet https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/High_Galactic_alphabet

356
Apejo•

To add to this, aurebesh doesn't show up until Empire Strikes Back. This is one of those cases where the explanation had to come later.

Edit: so to answer OPs question, they are absolutely 100% named after the Latin characters (obviously), and the introduction of aurebesh and later High Galactic are the retcons to make it make sense.

211
yurklenorf•

Aurebesh is featured in the more recent edits for ANH. It wasn't until after the special editions of the OT were made that they replaced the English with Aurebesh in that film, and I want to say it was actually the 2006 DVD set that first did it?

77
skipford77•

2004

24
L3thal_Inj3ction•

Doesn’t Chalmun’s have a sign in Aurebesh or no?

10
Apejo•

Maybe in a newer release? Just checked wookieepedia and apparently the first appearance was actually ROTJ, not ESB. According to the wiki, aurebesh characters can be seen on a computer screen on the Death Star II, but are gibberish when translated.

25
mdp300•

The first appearance of Aurebesh was on the scene in ROTJ where they scan the shuttle before landing. I think it's seen both with Vader's shuttle at the beginning, and later when the rebel shuttle arrives.

And yeah, it's jibberish, it was never meant to actually be read, it's only on screen for a couple seconds. Later the West End Games RPG wrote the transliteration to English letters, which subsequent things then kept using. I remember the Star Wars Monopoly game from the 90s had an Aurebesh translation card and for a while I could read it without even needing to stop and think.

18
Spacecow6942•

Oh, that article also points out that droid naming convention makes use of 'High Galactic'. I've wondered about the ship names before, but somehow I always forgot that droid names do the same thing!

23
tomjoad2020ad•

Yeah, it’s funny, I’ve noticed that people who don’t know about High Galactic often catch this apparent inconsistency with alphabet fighter ships, but never droid names!

11
hellothere42069•

That handwritten note concept was so cringe. Like real margin notes are impossible to discern and vague, and don’t so cleanly encapsulate the personality of the writer in every single sentence, smh.

-8
nicolasmcfly•

I'm gonna disagree hard. Reading them as a kid made me learn the basic differences between how each character views the world in a way no movies and series had done before, and they helped me get interest in reading Legends. Plus some comments are very funny

20
hellothere42069•

That’s dope and I’m glad for it, and I really need to check myself when using the word cringe that I’m not gatekeeping, shaming, or projecting. Like it makes me cringe is probably better to say.

15
nicolasmcfly•

I understand. Jedi Path in particular has some cheesy lines retroactively referencing movie happenings, like obi-wan being afraid of fighting a force user with many lightsabers at once, and Ahsoka is just annoying generally, but other than that they're cool.

7
[deleted]•

[removed]

206
ethenmillard77•

If people are looking at the letters, we're all in big trouble.

56
PENGUIN_WITH_BAZOOKA•

I will forever love that quote for giving us a canned response to anyone who overthinks this franchise.

26
HelixSapphire•

To be fair, that’s kind of the point of this subreddit.

45
Camburglar13•

Right but fans need to understand that all the layers and details just didn’t exist in the beginning and some things just are the way they are because a movie was being made.

8
nicolasmcfly•

Out of all places on the internet, our sub is definitely one that understands this. It's nice to see how retroactive problems get fixed.

14
Gekokapowco•

This phrase should be banned from this sub, it's hilarious but is antithesis to what this sub is about

20
TheCarrzilico•

I disagree. It's great to think about these things and challenge each other's ideas about what is going on ina galaxy far, far away, but sometimes people in this sub get a little too passionate about their or someone else's take. Obviously this isn't happening in this thread (so far) but Harrison's quote is always a good thing to have on hand just in case they do.

10
dern_the_hermit•

Yeah, and it's basically stated there in the sidebar:

In universe topics/explanations are preferred, but analysis of Star Wars as a work of fiction is also encouraged.

9
Kalavier•

I gotta love when somebody posts a question/comment and I look in the comments and see a reply that's just

"Who cares they all made it up." or "They don't give a shit and just did whatever."

3
guitar_maniv•

If people are looking at your hair we're all in biiiiig trouble

17
BeastBoy2230•

In Rebels the guy who makes the B-Wing calls it the “Blade Wing” originally. I assume they just shortened that because it looks a hell of a lot more like a sword than any letter B I’ve ever seen

80
TheCarrzilico•

As a kid, I rationalized the "B" as if the ship was oriented horizontally with the foils in attack position, and you included the dotted line representing the path of the foils, kinda like O-B----o

29
transmogrify•

Eh, if you look at it in side profile, the cockpit is the top loop, the reactor section is the lower loop, and then there's a bunch more stuff that you ignore, and voila it's a B!

3
mdp300•

The A-Wing and B-Wing were called "Rebel Fighter A" and "Rebel Fighter B" in pre-production ROTJ concept art. Later when other stuff was being made, they called them the A-Wing (which makes sense if you look at it from above) and the B-Wing.

But I like the new idea that it's a shortened form of "Bladewing."

29
Admirable_Elk_965•

I always thought it should’ve been T-Wing. I guess if you’re looking at it as a blade it makes sense

5
murdered-by-swords•

Complicated by the T-Wing already existing in Legends

1
SGTBookWorm•

the T-Wing didn't make it's first appearance until a decade after RotJ

5
murdered-by-swords•

That's true, but we aren't living in the decade where the B-Wing existed and the T-Wing did not

1
hugsandambitions•

They're called Crosswings and Vev wings, but the same thing translating all the dialogue from Galactic Basic to American English is also translating it from Vev-wing to Y-wing

44
DangerV5•

I like this explanation, X-Wing is just the localized name

29
HarpersGeekly•

Lol. Okay so this is for the laughs.

I think it was in the late 80s early 90s on various talk shows or article interviews where spiky hair and leather jacket Mark Hamill would speak about this exact sorta thing. He and Carrie would poke fun at convention people who would raise their hands and ask questions like this r/MawInstallation post and their responses would be something like “wow that’s uhh really interesting I have absolutely no idea, and never once in my career ever actually thought about that, uhh ever, but thank you so much for being such passionate fans…” lmao. Freaking love them.

27
mdp300•

Whenever something like that happens, a wizard did it.

9
TheCarrzilico•

I think of it as a translation into English kind of thing. Obviously a bunch of civilizations from long ago in a galaxy far, far away wouldn't speak English, but I can understand everyone that speaks Galactic basic, so there's some kind of translation process within the magic of filmmaking.

16
AwesomeX121189•

Yep hence why they speak “basic”. When translated into other languages it’s still called “basic” and the meaning remains. Same for why they speak “common” in dungeons and dragons.

4
clichekiller•

I think they were named as such because when George wrote A New Hope he hadn’t thought that far ahead; any justification given is just to put a veneer of plausibility on it. Star Wars was never meant to be taken so literally or deeply, the first movie was done in the style of the pulp serials of the fifties, which were not really known for their internally consistent world building or logic and relied heavily on the rule of cool.

11
Ok-Tooth-6197•

Aurebesh didn't exist when the original trilogy was made. If you watch the theatrical versions, it's nowhere to be found outside of a few similar symbols in parts of RotJ. It was invented as a part of the tabletop RPG, and added to the movies with CGI in the Special editions in the 90's.

11
mdp300•

It's amazing how much influence can still be felt from the old RPG from 30+ years ago. Much of the material was just pulled out of thun air by the writers, who were huge fans, back when there was only the OT and a few books.

3
Kiyohara•

To the degree that when new books were being written, the book publishers would give new writers the RPG source books for data and fleshing out the lore.

1
whoisthismuaddib•

When I was little, I didn’t understand why they didn’t put the X Foils in attack position.

8
Hambone1138•

My headcanon is that since they’re in a galaxy far far away, none of them are actually speaking English, and we’re just hearing what they would be saying in their own language. Sort of like a dubbed foreign film.

So whenever we hear them say “Y-wing,” they’re really saying “Vev-snarg” or something, but it’s just said in English so we can understand it. At least that’s how I think about it.

6
DrBacon27•

My radical, unfounded theory/headcanon is that these ships were named after various creatures that all have horns/markings that are coincidentally shaped like letters from the latin alphabet, and in an equally astounding coincidence, all these creatures have fitting names for the letters they resemble. Like the X-Wing actually being named after some weird creature called an Exorabeast, which is known for its distinctive cross-shaped horns

5
InquisitorPeregrinus•

Kenner got the "shorthand" names ILM gave the models on the shooting stage. In Star Wars, the "X ship", "Y ship", and "TIE ship" (because, to them, it looked like bow tie). In Jedi, the two new fighters were the "A ship" and the "B ship", not for their shape, but just designations hung on them. By making all of those official, it was left to us poor schlubs in the fandom to rationalize it. "B" is now short for "blade" because it looks like a sword in combat configuration. "TIE" became an acronym (I like to think "twin ion engine" is a handy mnemonic people have to remember its propulsion system, when it actually stands for something like "Tactical/Interdiction/Enforcement" or something). "X", "Y", and "A" are loosely analogous to shape. But, as noted, only in "High Galactic"...

That's a whole damn thing that I just have to hold my nose and accept -- that somehow in the GFFA they developed exactly the same alphabet with exactly the same sounds -- and even have a place called England -- as we have, but "a long time ago". Because it is those letters. Our favorite neurotic protocol droid isn't Cresh-Threepethosk. His counterpart isn't Reshtoo-Dartoo.

Given that, yes, I can accept that people took to calling those three fighters by those nicknames. "Y-Wing" is a lot less cumbersome than "BTL-A4".

5
tomjoad2020ad•

I like that Star Wars is fantasy just as much as LOTR or whatever — it’s fine that they have English letters, or ducks, or football but with droids, because it’s not speculative fiction—we’re free to toss whatever Earthly things we wish into this giant invented world. Coruscant can have 365 days per year of 24 hours of 60 minutes, because it’s easier if we have an analogue to how we think of time (actually I know it’s not 365 days in SW, but close enough that we’re not meant to think about it)

5
progger11•

When a thread topic could have been avoided with a simple Wookiepedia search.

4
Myriad6468•

Because the X-wing looks like an X and a Y-wing looks like Y😂

3
d4red•

Yes but if you read the post… Star Wars doesn’t use English…

2
Myriad6468•

It was a joke…

2
ooba-neba_nocci•

The Latin alphabet exists in the Star Wars universe. It’s called High Galactic.

3
ellhulto66445•

This question has been answered hundred of thousands times.
The High Galactic Alphabet

2
nosecohn•

Do they even call them that in universe, or do we just use those names as the English-speaking audience (and toy manufacturers)?

1
sketchmarsh•

Yes, x-wing is said multiple times

4
mdp300•

ESB: "ship approaching, X-Wing class" when Luke is arriving to Cloud City.

TLJ: "There are things that you cannot solve by jumping in an X-wing and blowing something up!" And then later "Permission to jump in an X-wing and blow something up?"

Mando: "An X-Wing." "One X-Wing? Great, we're saved."

I'm pretty sure that the name Y-Wing was said in Clone Wars and Rebels, too.

4
pinkshirtbadman•

They do later, but in ANH Luke refers to his X-wing as a T65

1
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
bigjoestallion•

Nerd

1