The Real Reason Baby Yoda's Name Is Not "Baby Yoda" In 'The Mandalorian'

In this day and age, it's hard to find someone who hasn't heard the name Baby Yoda. More than likely, you're going to get a rather positive reaction to the little green alien when you mention the name. Those who aren't as familiar with The Mandalorian as the more dedicated Star Wars fans are will be surprised to never hear the name once at all, it won't even be printed on any merchandise. Many fans are already aware of the discrepancy and why it's there, but if you were wondering why he's not called Baby Yoda, then you won't have that question any longer. 

Basically, it starts with the timeline of Star Wars. Yoda had a rather memorable death scene in Return of the Jedi. Given that The Mandalorian takes places after the original trilogy, calling him Baby Yoda would cause confusion as he isn't actually Yoda, but rather just an infant of the same species. The problem with calling him the species to which they belong is that they don't actually have a name. Yoda is the most famous member of the species, and some more dedicated fans may remember Yaddle, a female member of the species who appears in The Phantom Menace. In canon, Baby Yoda is only the third member of the species we've seen. Never in any movies, books, comics, shows, or even trading cards is the species mentioned by name or given many details. Baby Yoda was simply given his name out of a lack of information and name of his own. 

Watching the show or even being in the presence of The Mandalorian branded merchandise will lead people to know him as The Child most frequently, and in the show he's mentioned as "the asset" from time to time, but never is he given an actual name until the most recent episode. Taika Waititi previously mentioned that Baby Yoda has been given a name and he knows what it is, but much to the chagrin of many fans, he didn't reveal it right away. Disney does have a reputation of being rather stiff lipped with inside details like that, so it's unlikely we'll know before they want us to know. However, we now know that The Child's real name is...Grogu. However, the nickname Baby Yoda may still persist.

The name Baby Yoda does tend to draw confusion from the uninitiated, leading them to believe that The Child is actually Yoda when he was a kid, meaning The Mandalorian is a prequel to basically all the movies we've gotten at this point. Grogu was actually born the same year as Anakin Skywalker, our sometimes protagonist, sometimes antagonist, whose name Star Wars never lets us forget. Despite this, the slow aging of Grogu's species leads him to only be a baby even after Skywalker's death in Return of the Jedi. 

The nickname Baby Yoda can't be found anywhere on any Star Wars merchandise or as a part of any official series. The name is entirely thanks to the internet, as many popular names can be tracked back to. With a lack of a name for his species, a lack of representation of people from the species and no official name released as a yet, it can be understood why the internet took to this name the way it has. The popular nickname came before any mention of one in the series, and it does tend to roll off the tongue a little better than The Child or the asset. 

Even though we now know The Child's real name, it's most likely that Baby Yoda will tend to be the more common name to refer to the lovable green bean. With season two a little more than halfway completed, we now have the name Grogu to refer to him as for the remainder of the series.

Source(s): Cosmopolitan