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There are several planets in Star Wars that use -tooine in their names. Tatooine, Dantooine, Ventooine, etc, etc. I was just wondering if (like a real life place name) it had any canon meaning, like the other popular name element Ord. (And for those wondering; Ordnance/Regional Depot - military bases during the Pius Dea crusaders)

Thanks in advance.

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    "Here I am in Tatooine, jumping double Dutch like youve never seen. I know my way around a rope, help me obi-wan you're my only help" ;)
    – Mac Cooper
    Jul 13, 2015 at 15:46
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    @MacCooper: *hope Jul 13, 2015 at 16:04
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    @ThePopMachine, and this is why the world was better without autocorrect :D
    – Mac Cooper
    Jul 13, 2015 at 16:07
  • I doubt there's any canon significance; I believe Tattooine was named after the Jawa word for their planet (tah doo een e), and the sounds are only part of their language. That makes it unlikely that other unrelated planets were named for the same reason; perhaps someone just liked the way "Tattooine" sounded? :)
    – KutuluMike
    Jul 13, 2015 at 16:08
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    @MichaelEdenfield - actually, I think that's just the Jawas pronunciation of the existing planet name.
    – Omegacron
    Jul 13, 2015 at 16:18

2 Answers 2

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TL;DR: In-universe, we don't know, but it may be a leftover from the Rakata Empire. Out-of-universe, Lucas liked the sound of it.


In-Universe

In-universe, we have no explanation for why some 15 planets or so all end in "ooine". Most of the said planets are located in the Outer Rim territories, and many currently fall under Hutt control. However, some of these names have existed for millenia, predating even the Hutts.

The best possible guess at the moment is that the suffix had some meaning to the Rakata - an ancient empire which controlled much of the galaxy eons ago, and presumably named many of the planets in their empire.

Out-of-Universe

Out of universe, Lucas first invented the suffix when attempting to name Luke's home planet. The name "Tatooine" is a homonym of "Tataouine", which is the capital of Southern Tunisia where the Tatooine scenes were filmed. Lucas has stated in interviews that he changed existing non-English words to give them an alien feel.

The only two planets given this suffix in the original trilogy were Tatooine and Dantooine, although early Legends canon introduced the world Klatooine as the homeworld of Jabba's Klatoo guardsmen. Afterwards, the suffix became popular whenever an EU author needed to make up an Outer Rim planet.

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  • Thank you, your In-Universe answer makes a lot of sense, I'm very passionate about Star Wars and that was starting to bug me.
    – Noswaith
    Jul 14, 2015 at 20:55
  • hmmm are the rakata still canon? else the in universe answer would be an in universe legends answer?
    – Thomas
    Jul 18, 2015 at 7:03
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    I'm guessing that "Klatooine" would have been a reference to The Day the Earth Stood Still?
    – Wad Cheber
    Aug 10, 2015 at 8:13
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    @WadCheber - yep, you guessed it. Jabba had four different alien races working for him as guards (not counting humans). The pig guys were named Gammoreans, but the other three races were named Klatoo, Barada, and Nikto.
    – Omegacron
    Aug 10, 2015 at 13:52
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    @Omegacron: Almost; Barada was, in fact, a Klatooninian. Jul 16, 2016 at 12:01
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For In-Universe reasons....

The Rakata are a part of the Star Wars; The Old Republic game so may still be canon.

The named planets could be from an old trade route, or a specific explorer that "found" the worlds for the Rakata or other government that mapped the general area. In the old RPG games it mentions scouts discovering worlds and naming them.

It should be pointed out however that only worlds with a resident sentient population is likely to have its own name. Since it has no population, and outside visitor to our system would have our star and planet named on their charts, but Mars would just be Sol-4.

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