Talk:Sardaukar

where do armament and stats come from? Sardaukar did NOT use Gom jabars and hunter-seeker were no standard-weapons... --Haerangil (talk) 21:43, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Does anyone know the etymology of Sardaukar?
My first theory was that this is a name of the Persian Immortals, due to the association of the emperor with Persia (padishah). But that's not the case; in fact no Persian name for the Immortals is known or theorized since they probably never existed (they seem to come from a mistranslation by Herodotus).

Is it known how Frank Herbert came up with this name?

I'll propose a theory that has no other foundation than that it sounds plausible to me: from Sargon of Akkad, who was arguably the first human to rule an empire in a somewhat modern sense. His name was (a variation of) Šarru-ukīn in Akkadian, where "sarru" means king and "ukin" means establish (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad), which is exactly what the Sardaukar did for the Corrino dynasty. Sardaukar may be a more badass sounding version of this.

Edit: Found the alternative Persian etymology sar (head) dar (holder) gar (occupation) here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/qcc9ee/sardaukar_etymology/

-- CK