Illustrated by artist Russ Walks for the Star Wars Galaxy: Series 3 set of trading cards, released by Topps in 1995.
Leia Organa Solo, holding her two newborn infants, Jaina and Jacen. The babies were born on Coruscant in 9 ABY, with Jaina being the eldest of the twins by 5 minutes. The birth of the twins was much publicized throughout the galaxy via the HoloNet, resulting in a brief baby boom throughout the New Republic. In a Tales story, named Routine, it was hinted that Jaina may have been named after Han's mother, who the story suggests may have shared the name.
Regarding the origin of the twins, editor Tom Dupree recalled Bantam Books submitting a short, one or two page checklist to George Lucas for the Thrawn Trilogy where questions were asked as to what George would permit in the new books. Notably, when asked two questions -- "Can Han and Leia get married?" and "Can they have kids?”, George's reply to both was the same: "YES." With that short answer, the path to the birth of Jaina and Jacen was laid.
Author Timothy Zahn would recall years later in an interview with Adventure Journal #1 the process of naming the two Solo children: "Jacen was easy. He was [my son] Corwin's best friend at the time, and so I named the boy Jasen, although Betsy Mitchell [Bantam's editor] suggested changing the "s" to a "c" so it wasn't so 1980s popular name. Jaina took a lot more work. I remember going over several days writing down names and bouncing them back and forth with Betsy and not really finding what we wanted yet. I figured if we were going to have Luke and Leia with similar initials, these twins ought to have similar initials as well."
2087
germansingergirl
izzy806
gummygunk
