Star Wars: 10 Things You Didn't Know About R2-D2

There aren't that many droids that have actual names, most of them have to get by with the serial numbers they were assigned by their manufacturers, sometimes being given nicknames by their owners along the way.

While at first glance it appears that these serial numbers are just randomly assigned letters and digits used as an easy way to identify them, they do actually have a meaning. In R2's case, it stands for Second Generation Robotic Droid Series Two.

This seems to imply he's quite an old droid, as there have been several newer models of R-series astromechs since, going all the way up to R7s, yet he doesn't seem to have any problems integrating with newer starfighters and is still functioning after well over half a century of heavy use.

With that being said, there doesn't seem to be much consistency with the way droids are designated. R5-D4, from The Mandalorian, looks at least as old as R2, yet should be newer, and let's not even get started with how Luke accidentally referred to him as an "R2 unit".