Star Wars: Bo-Katan's Name Has An Unexpected Origin, According To Katee Sackhoff
"Star Wars" character names aren't always subtle. Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) is a fairly apparent distortion of "dark father," Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is about as main character as you can get in a space opera franchise, and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) doesn't initially play well with others. But in the case of Mandalorian warrior Bo-Katan Kryze, the etymology is even sillier.
You might suspect that Bo-Katan actor and "Big Bang Theory" character Howard's (Simon Helberg) bathtub girl Katee Sackhoff might have had part of her name morphed into the character's. "Katan" and "Katee" aren't so far off, after all, and Sackhoff has played the Mandalorian in every iteration, from her animated debut on "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" to her live-action co-starring role in "The Mandalorian" Season 3. But the actual origin of the name goes back to Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni, as well as his wife and her cat.
"[Bo-Katan is] named after Anne and a cat, Anne's cat Boogie," the actor revealed on her podcast, "Blah Blah Blah with Katee Sackhoff." She then mentioned that the character's visual design was also modeled after Filoni's wife, not her, as some fans have assumed. "That's Dave's wife, Anne," she said. "We just look enough alike." That resemblance certainly came in handy when Disney was looking to cast Bo-Katan for "The Mandalorian."
Bo-Katan isn't the only Star Wars character named after Dave Filoni's family
It's not uncommon for writers to work in references to their real lives in world-building details or character names, the most obvious example being Luke Skywalker himself (who bears essentially the same name as his creator, George Lucas). True to form, Dave Filoni has done this in more instances than just that of Bo-Katan.
His wife's last name, Convery, was used for convorees, a species of owl with curious Force attunement that appears across the animated "Star Wars" universe. One particular convor, Morai, even pops up in "Ahsoka" Season 1, having watched over the eponymous character for many years.
Another animal named after someone from Filoni's past is the tooka, a species of cat that first appears in the final episodes of "The Clone Wars" Season 5. The creatures are shown residing in the depths of Coruscant's lower levels, and their name comes from a cat Filoni himself once had named Tuuk.
Meanwhile, despite being Bo-Katan's namesake, Anne Convery isn't as inundated with "Star Wars" material as you might think. "The house is mostly a Star Wars-free zone, and that's not even my active doing," she told Syfy Wire in 2020. "I think Dave needs a little space from it, too, and he has his whole office down at work to populate with Plo Koon memorabilia."