20 pieces of trivia you need to know about Star Wars

The planet name Scarif came from a coffee

We’ve all been there. Starbucks, I mean. Specifically, we’ve all been in Starbucks on a day where the barista just can’t hear you or has simply never met another person with your name before, and so you end up with a coffee intended for someone called Loofer, as opposed to your actual name.

It happens, but rarely is it so useful as it was to Rogue One director Gareth Edwards. While he didn’t actually name the coffee shop (but come on!), Edwards said at SXSW last year that he came up with the planet name of Scarif, where the Empire keeps all its plans and archives, after a barista wrote “Scareth” on his cup.

Also, that completely common name, “Scareth.”

“Gary Whitta — a writer on the film — was naming things in the story, but eventually he was sick of doing it,” he told the audience. “And I was waiting for him to say this. So he told me to name the planet at the end of the movie, the whole third act. I was like ‘Right, this is a big deal. I’m going to get a coffee and I’ll come back with a name.’ So I went to a very well-known coffee shop and was thinking and thinking what should it be.”

“It’s been so weird to see it on t-shirts and everything,” he added, “but I couldn’t tell anyone that it was just a misspelling of my name on a coffee cup.”

We think it’s a pretty clever (if a little too reliant on luck) way of naming something, actually. Well done.