Meaning and background
The story behind Vader
Vader is strongly associated with Darth Vader in *Star Wars*, a character documented by the franchise's own reference site. Separately, the identical written word *vader* means 'father' in Dutch. Those two facts should not be joined into a claim that the character was necessarily named from the Dutch word. For a pet, the fictional association is more immediately recognisable, while the language resemblance remains a separate point.
- Meaning
- Independently, Dutch vader means “father”; this is a lexical homograph, not an established derivation of the fictional Darth Vader. Source
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About Vader
Recorded as a dog’s name
Vader appears in 13 dog licence records in the 2026 New York City dataset.
How to read this count
These records cover New York City and may count the same dog in more than one licence period. They are not a national popularity ranking.
Pronunciation and rhythm
/veɪdɚ/
US English sound sequence, converted from the CMU dictionary. Stress marks are shown separately.
Stress on the first syllable in the recorded US readings.
View dictionary notation
/veɪdɚ/ · primary stress on syllable 1V EY1 D ER0
These are US dictionary readings. Personal, regional and other language pronunciations may differ.
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Sources and research notes (2)
- New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene NYC Dog Licensing Dataset — extract_year 2026 — Dog licence periods, not unique dogs; NYC only. No owner-level fields retrieved.
- Carnegie Mellon University / CMU Sphinx maintainers CMU US English Pronouncing Dictionary — US English dictionary readings; not owner-specific or exhaustive multilingual pronunciation
References support the individual facts shown. A source link does not mean the entire profile has been verified.