Darth ain't Dutch

Sorry, I just have to vent... kindly indulge me a moment.
It seems whenever a discussion is held about the origins of the name "Darth Vader" someone inevitably claims it means "dark father" in Dutch.
Now it may be possible that George Lucas had "dark father" in mind when he created the name (I for one doubt it - I still believe he didn't come up with the father angle until some time after ANH), but if he did, he probably only changed some letters to distort it and make it sound more GFFA, a technique he has used with a lot of names since (Zett Jukassa for Jett Lucas comes to mind).

ANYWAY, my point is: Nobody who claims the origins of the name are Dutch (and why the hell should they be?) ever seems to bother digging out an English-Dutch dictionary and actually try and verify those claims.

Well, I just did. Three different online dictionaries, in fact, just to be sure.

The good news:
"Vader" is indeed a Dutch word meaning "father".
(It is however pronounced a lot differently, more like "faah-der", not like "vay-der", but that's kinda beside the point and not really part of my argument.)

The bad news:
"darth" is not a word in the Dutch language. (I'm not 100% certain, but I'm fairly sure Dutch doesn't even have the English "th" sound.)
According to the dictionary, some Dutch words for "dark" are "somber", "duister", (those two being probably the closest to "dark" in a Darth Vader sense, meaning also "gloomy"/"ominous"/"sinister"/"scary"😉, "donker" (also pretty close in meaning, but more likely to mean "not light"😉 and "onverlicht" (meaning simply "unlit"😉.

I hope this'll finally put at least one part of the "Vader" origin debate to rest.

To repeat, it's well within the realm of the possible that Lucas meant for the name to signify "dark father", but claims that the name is derived from Dutch are nonsense.

Thanks for listening. I'll get off the soapbox now.

(Any Dutch people out there, please feel free to correct or confirm me as Dutch is not my native language.)

It's nothing to do with Dutch per se, although you can make the comparison if you must - really it is just a play on words:

"'Darth' is a variation of dark. And 'Vader' is a variation of father. So it's basically Dark Father. All the names have history, but sometimes I make mistakes -- Luke was originally going to be called Luke Starkiller, but then I realized that wasn't appropriate for the character. It was appropriate for Anakin, but not his son. I said, 'Wait, we can't weigh this down too much -- he's the one that redeems him.'" - George Lucas, Rolling Stone, June 2005

We will never know what the name Vader means within the Star Wars universe, but Darth is widely accepted to be just a shortened form of Dark Lord of the Sith.

Thanks for the info thread, but it should be pointed out that Dutch moderator queeq made this point a long time ago (in a Galaxy far etc.) so it has always been generally known amongst the oldies that the Vader/Dutch thing was a myth.

It is still a widely propogated myth though, so nice to see another reminder.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Thanks for the info thread, but it should be pointed out that Dutch moderator queeq made this point a long time ago (in a Galaxy far etc.)

Whoops - I must have searched the forums badly then. Apologies to all who were annoyed by my smartassing...

while were on it isn't Jedi the name of Japenese sitcom? lol i think i remmebr him saying something like that

Originally posted by Moosooman
while were on it isn't Jedi the name of Japenese sitcom? lol i think i remmebr him saying something like that

Japanese is notoriously hard to translate to Western languages, but "Jidai-Geki" is a term used to describe a number of theatrical forms of entertainment and movie genres, but primarily describes what we may more familiarly refer to as Samurai movies.
It basically means "costume drama" or "period piece".

We all know what a big influence the films of Akira Kurosawa were on Lucas - "Jedi" clearly has it's roots in the word "Jidai" and Lucas' desire to evoke the Samurai tradition.

Originally posted by SixOfTwelve
Whoops - I must have searched the forums badly then. Apologies to all who were annoyed by my smartassing...

but on a more happy note... there are words in dutch written with "th", like ether ... or did you mean the sound of it?

Originally posted by yerssot
but on a more happy note... there are words in dutch written with "th", like ether ... or did you mean the sound of it?

I meant the sound, the dental fricative. (Ha! Paying attention in phonetics class finally paid off!)

ah, as far as I know, there is no word that has that sound in Dutch

The "Vajen-Bader" patented self contained smoke rescue self contained breathing apparatus was in frequent use by fire companies in American cities from the 1890's onwards.

Certainly the distinctive appearance (and the equally recognizable noise cycle generated by labored inspiration and expiration) would have been well known to the older generation of props and FX men employed by Lucas on the original SW IV set.

There a strong case (enough to be considered carefully anyway) for the name 'Darth Vader' being an alliterative allusion to the proprietary name "Vajen-Bader" widely once used for this type of face mask.

Go and search for some images. Some sites have it as "Vagen-Bader" with a 'G'. I dare say, the inventors, they were both Dutch.)

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ahrXTHEjHxgC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=vagen+bader+company&source=web&ots=Q9go7BZ9Yc&sig=A2TzEeN8DL81Ct9gXC9m8ybB-Dk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Errrr..... how weird. And far fetched.

Yes.

Very.

Of course.

Word.

Originally posted by Ordo
Word.

I like your sig. Very cool.

I like your artwork under the link under your sig. What program do you use? I am espicially interested in how you make the lightsabers look so good.

Originally posted by boundless
The "Vajen-Bader" patented self contained smoke rescue self contained breathing apparatus was in frequent use by fire companies in American cities from the 1890's onwards.

Certainly the distinctive appearance (and the equally recognizable noise cycle generated by labored inspiration and expiration) would have been well known to the older generation of props and FX men employed by Lucas on the original SW IV set.

There a strong case (enough to be considered carefully anyway) for the name 'Darth Vader' being an alliterative allusion to the proprietary name "Vajen-Bader" widely once used for this type of face mask.

Go and search for some images. Some sites have it as "Vagen-Bader" with a 'G'. I dare say, the inventors, they were both Dutch.)

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ahrXTHEjHxgC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=vagen+bader+company&source=web&ots=Q9go7BZ9Yc&sig=A2TzEeN8DL81Ct9gXC9m8ybB-Dk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Looks more like something you would see in Hellboy. GL would have had to have seen a lot more than that to get to the actual design for Darth Vader (or I imagine, his design team).

Originally posted by SixOfTwelve

(It is however pronounced a lot differently, more like "faah-der",

That's how Asians say father in English movies.

dutch don't pronounce it faa-der.
The v is still a v, not an f. Perhaps the one who wrote that talked to a walloon? 😛

😂