The Mandalorian‘s Baby Yoda has taken the world by storm. He made his debut in the first episode of the show and almost immediately launched a million memes. His wild success appeared to take Disney by surprise as well, with little merchandise featuring his adorable visage available for the 2019 holiday season. Thankfully, they’ve since rectified that, but one major sticking point has been the character’s name.
Audiences instantly decided that he should be called Baby Yoda because he’s a baby and he’s a Yoda. Simple. Jon Favreau disagreed, however, preferring that people use his official name, The Child. Disney CEO Bob Iger said last December that Favreau had even objected when he’d referred to him as Baby Yoda in an email, explaining:
“I got chastised, in my early emails to Jon Favreau, I referenced in my emails, ‘Baby Yoda.’ It just seemed easy. And I got my wrists slapped by Jon a few times. ‘It’s not Baby Yoda!’ ‘Okay, okay!’ [Laughs].”
With the second season now finished, we know the character’s real name is Grogu and that he’s being instructed in the Force by Luke Skywalker. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of the little guy, but it seems that Favreau has at least softened on what to call him. In an interview with Good Morning America, he explained:
“But of course, everybody knows Grogu as ‘Baby Yoda.’ Which, by the way, is fine with all of us. We still call him Baby Yoda too, but he prefers to be called ‘Grogu,’ if you notice in the show. He perks up a lot when you say his name.”
So, what’s next for The Child/Baby Yoda/Grogu? Well, some have noted that heading to Luke Skywalker’s Jedi academy isn’t such a safe place to be as it’s destined to be destroyed by Kylo Ren in the future, with many of the students killed. That’d be a miserable ending for Grogu, but we can take comfort in knowing that he’s got experience in surviving massacres at a Jedi school.
My bet is that he’ll soon be reunited with Din Djarin. Maybe there’ll be a time skip after this season and the next time we see him he’ll be more communicative and able to control his Jedi abilities. Plus, there’s still the dangling loose end of Moff Gideon having gotten the genetic information he wanted from him. I guess we’ll find out in late 2021, when The Mandalorian‘s third season debuts.