NameItJad.com is my personal campaign to get George Lucas & Co. to choose something from the upcoming Star Wars TV show and name it after me, Jad. I’ll be discussing news and rumors about the show, giving you progress on my campaign, and keeping you up to date on my communications with various Star Wars celebrities. My Star Wars fandom has taken me to four continents (and counting), and I’ll be telling you all about my various adventures!

I grew up in the late 70’s and early 80’s, which means that two things run through my veins: Star Wars, and blood. My first memory of seeing a movie in the theater was at Pinocchio, when the giant whale made me cry. But my SECOND cinematic memory was at the scene in The Empire Strikes Back, when Darth Vader is using the force to hurl stuff at Luke. I asked my mom, “What’s he doing?” She wisely replied, “He’s cheating!”

Like most masculine children of the 80’s who never cry at movies, I dabbled in He-Man, Transformers, GI Joe, Lego, Thundercats, and other lesser mythologies. Try as I might to stray, like a bad penny or a good boomerang, I always came back to that galaxy far, far away.

It would take a Jedi to get out of this mess, circa 1984

I was a proud subscriber to Bantha Tracks, and I still have my Return of the Jedi patch, though the sweatshirt is long gone. Later in life, I would have not one but TWO letters published in the modern Star Wars fan club magazine. In his column Scouting The Galaxy, uber-collector Steve Sansweet answered my questions in issues 31 and 43 of the Star Wars Insider.

As a child I had a modest but beloved collection of Kenner Star Wars toys. To this day I can’t watch that scene in E.T. without welling up with joy. Not the flower-comes-back-to-life scene, the scene where Elliott explains the difference between Hammerhead and Lando to the peckish alien. I forget the alien’s name. Anyway, while I would love to have held on to those toys, I made the difficult decision to clear out the closet. But the money did not go to something as frivolous as a retirement portfolio, oh no! I used those funds to help pay for a trip all the way around the world. Along the way I found and lost love, and my wallet, wore through three pairs of shoes & two pairs of sandals, and with a little luck, happened to find a few familiar sites.

Jad in Tunisia, May 19, 2004

In my experience, there IS such a thing as luck. Keep checking the main page for more travel stories, as this picture is just the tip of the Sandcrawler.

So, where does all of this get us? I think the name Jad is pretty cool, and I’ve striven to represent it well throughout my life. I frequently have to explain that it’s ‘like Chad, but with a J‘ and ‘like Jed, but with an A,’ but if that’s the price of being a Jad, I’ll gladly pay it. So I’m asking George Lucas to choose something from the upcoming Star Wars TV show and name it Jad. Do I deserve to have something named Jad? Certainly not! This is simply a polite request, and if nothing ends up being named Jad, then I’ll have had a good run at it anyway. But really, Mr. Lucas, certainly there’s some minor character, planet, or droid that wouldn’t mind being named Jad?

Please?