Thrawn’s real name is pretty wild, and it’s canon that Anakin can’t pronounce it

Ahoska’s big bad Grand Admiral Thrawn has finally made his live-action debut after being an essential part of the wider Star Wars mythology. However, some fans have pointed out that this isn’t his real name at all.

In fact, canonically Thrawn is actually called Mitth'raw'nuruodo, based on his Chiss background. They have names with three parts, to indicate their family prefix, a given name, and their social status.

His birth name was Kivu'raw'nuru, as he was part of the Kivu family and his given name was "raw". However, he later joined the Mitth family, which was of a higher status, which led him to change his name (H/T CBR).

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The reason he’s called Thrawn in Ahsoka is because this is actually his core name. The Chiss used these to reduce formality and because non-Chiss had difficulties pronouncing their names. In fact, a certain Anakin Skywalker is among those who are unable to handle it, as was revealed in Timothy Zahn’s novel 'Thrawn: Alliances'.

When introducing himself as Mitth’raw’nuruodo, he suggested Anakin address him by his core name. Ever obstinate, Anakin assured him he could handle it, before failing multiple times to actually pronounce it. You can read the full hilarious exchange in this extract here, via StarWarsNet.

Star Wars fans have been having fun with Thrawn’s real name too, reacting to it on Twitter. "Now knowing Thrawn's full name feels like we're his besties because none of the official accounts or media outlets ever say it, it's always 'Grand Admiral Thrawn' but we know him as our friendly neighborhood Mitth'raw'nuruodo," tweeted one.

We’ve yet to see if Thrawn’s real name will make an appearance in live-action as well, or not. However, it seems pretty clear that we’ll be seeing a lot more of him in the final few episodes of the Star Wars spin-off. For more on Ahsoka, check out our guides to: