Written by Thrawn and his species are not from the known galaxy, and 'Thrawn' is not his real name
Respected leader, calm warrior, and brilliant strategist, Admiral Thrawn is becoming one of the largest characters of Star Wars not only like he was in Legends, but also in canon. But ‘Thrawn’ is not his real name, and his origins are much more mysterious than one might think. In Timothy Zahn’s The Ascendancy Trilogy, we learn an incredible amount of backstory that tells Thrawn’s tale even before he joined forces with the Empire in the Known Regions of Space.
Born around the year 59 BBY on the backwater world of Rentor, Thrawn’s original name was actually Kivu’raw’nuru, and his core name was ‘Vurawn’. A blue-skinned species with red eyes, Chiss used a very specific naming system to create the names by which their members were known that included apostrophes to separate the three basic parts of the name. Chiss names were frequently multi-syllabic, consisting of three distinct parts, and frequently could be abbreviated by speaking part of the name known as the ‘core name’.
The first part of a Chiss name, written before the first apostrophe, represented the Chiss family to which its bearer belonged. The second part – found between the two apostrophes – was the person’s given name, and the third part after the final apostrophe contained other social factors related the bearer of the name. Because Chiss names were frequently long and difficult to pronounce by other species, Chiss also had a ‘core name’ which frequently was an abbreviation of the middle part of their full name. In the case of Kivu’raw’nuru (Thrawn’s original name), his core name was ‘Vurawn’.
| Family Name Prefix | Given Name | Social Factor Suffix | Full Name |
| Kivu | raw | nuru | Kivu’raw’nuru |
When Thrawn was born, he was a member of the Kivu family – a small and poor family within the large empire known as the Chiss Ascendancy. But when Thrawn attended the academy on Rentor and got exceptionally high grades, he quickly stood out in his classes, eventually catching the attention of multiple ruling families including the powerful Mitth Family – one of the Nine Ruling Families of the Chiss Ascendancy.
Eager to augment their power and influence within the Ascendancy, a Mitth family member known as Mitth’urf’ianico, “Thurfian”, visited Rentor and quickly noted the exceptional skills and intelligence that Vurawn (Thrawn) possessed, and adopted him into the Mitth family. The resulting adoption changed Vurawn’s name to Mitth’raw’nuru, making his core name ‘Thrawn’.
Later in Thrawn’s career, he and a fellow Mitth member, Thrass, were assigned to assist the Stybla family in reclaiming part of an ancient alien weapon known as Starflash, which had been stolen. The two succeeded in their mission and developed a bond of brotherhood. As a gesture of gratitude, a Stybla honoring ceremony was held in their honor. At the ceremony, Thrawn was bestowed the suffix, ‘odo’ – a word part meaning “guardian” in the ancient Stybla language known as Tybroic. The change transitioned Thrawn’s full name from Mitth’raw’nuru to Mitth’raw’nuruodo. The feat was a remarkable one; in the history of the Chiss Ascendancy, only eight other Chiss not of the Stybla family had ever received ‘odo’ as a suffix to their name. Thrawn’s career from there would only continue to grow within the Chiss Ascendancy, and eventually lead to his journey to the Known Regions of Space to form an alliance with the Empire.
Like all planets of the Chiss Ascendancy, Thrawn’s homeworld of Rentor was located in the Unknown Regions of the galaxy- aptly named due to the lack of star charts available to navigate the region. Located in the far galactic west beyond the Outer Rim, the Unknown Regions contained a high density of supernovae, black holes, gravity wells and even stranger phenomena resulting in unstable hyperspace lanes and extreme difficulty navigating the region, causing most outsiders to avoid the region altogether.
There were, of course, several other species that inhabited the Unknown Regions, but to the Galactic Republic and subsequent Galactic Empire, the region was all but a mystery. Owing to the extreme difficulty of navigating the region, the Chiss Ascendancy used special Force-sensitive members of their species to travel amongst the unstable regions of space. These unique Force-sensitive Chiss were known as ‘ozyly-esehembo’ or ‘sky-walkers’ and were among the Ascendancy’s most closely-guarded secrets.
Thrawn himself remained in these Unknown Regions for much of his life, until many years later, when he traveled to the Known Regions of space, eventually meeting Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars. Even much later than this, around 0 BBY, he would face off against Ezra Bridger, Hera Syndualla and their band of Rebels against the Empire, and in a final duel, he was swarmed by purrgil – large whale-like creatures capable of traveling through space. These creatures took his ship and jumped through hyperspace to another galaxy entirely, exiling Thrawn on the planet Peridea – where he is seen in the TV Series, ‘Ahoska‘.
