Hem Dazon
Stepping into the cantina, one the first characters you see is Hem Dazon, a glittery-eyed Arcona that was photographed as part of insert-footage. He was simply a bodiless puppet named "T-head" on set and designed and built by Laine Liska. According to Lucasfilm memoranda dated September 13, 1978, he was to have been given the proper name of "Thadd," though that name went unused. In the Holiday Special, the puppet head was mounted on an extra that walked through frame, giving a very brief view of the creature's humanoid anatomy.
In 1989, West End Games established the Arcona species of salt-addicted limbed serpents. A boxed miniature set identified the Arcona in the cantina as Hem Dazon, though the Star Wars Screen Entertainment software package would attempt to name him Kal Nkai. Dazon is the name that stuck.
Defel & Lak Sivrak
In supplementing the existing cantina alien footage, pinch-hitter Rick Baker pulled a number of pre-existing masks off-the-shelf to fill in the booth-based reshoots. This included two different furry-faced wolfmen in the cantina.
The first one seen in the original theatrical version of A New Hope is a snarly, shadowy creature with glowing red eyes. Baker's crew nicknamed this alien "Wolfman," but it is not the same alien as the more visible canine carouser seen later in the scene. That other wolfman was actually nicknamed "Hyena-Man," and he didn't get a proper name until 1989, when he was established as Lak Sivrak, the Shistavanen Wolfman.
The first wolfman went unnamed until Decipher Inc. described him as a "Defel" in the card game. The Defel first appeared in a 1989 gamebook as a compelling species of shadowy mercenaries that have the natural ability to absorb visible light. That worked well with the Defel barely glimpsed in the movie, but how do you explain photos of that original wolfman in plain lighting with clearly visible details? To alleviate that discrepancy, Decipher would later go on to explain that the Defel in the Cantina, Arliel Schous, is aging and is losing his light-absorbing talents, though that leaves readers to presume that any time an artist uses the "Wolf Man" mask as reference for a background alien, it is meant to be an aging Defel.
The off-the-shelf canine masks long bothered Lucas, and when it came time to do the Special Editions both aliens were replaced with more elaborate creations.
Trinto Duaba
This booth-lurking alien was nicknamed "Terminal Man," not only for his deathly appearance, but also odd electrical terminals grafted into his craggy skin. He was also known as "Veiny" and "Future Man." His name and backstory as Trinto, a vampiric Force-gobbling Stennes Shifter, came about in the mid-1990s through the Decipher Star Wars Customizable Card Game.
Brainiac
Another alien from Rick Baker's crew, this giant-headed specimen was known on set as "Brainee," "Cranium Head" and "Crater Head." He was never given a specific name until 1995, when he was dubbed Braniac, which according to lore is apparently just a nickname. His true name did not get assigned until 2008: Pons Limbic.
Bom Vimdin
This Rick Baker-supplied alien has probably the oddest on-set nickname: Don Rickles. No, the famous Vegas insult-comic didn't have anything to do with Star Wars, but this particular alien hockey puck resembled the comedian enough to earn the sobriquet. He didn't get a "real" name until 1993, when West End Games identified him as Bom Vimdin, the Advozse.
Myo
It's easy to trace the etymology of most of the on-set alien nicknames, such as The One-Eyed Cyclops. His proper name was going to be Cyceyed, back in 1978, but that name was lost to time. In 1995, a roleplaying sourcebook, Alliance Intelligence Reports, featured a cyclopean Abyssin named Myo. When the Decipher card of this character came out, the cantina alien finally had a name.
The spin-off material established Myo as a sort of hulking brute, but in truth, the person wearing the mask in the cantina was actually pretty scrawny compared to more recent artwork of the beefy Abyssins. Myo was a Laine Liska-designed slip-on mask with slight articulation of the eye.
Muftak
A fan favorite for his warbling drone and his endearing confused head-scratch, Muftak was nicknamed Spider-Man on the set. It wasn't for any similarity to the famous webslinging superhero, but rather because arachnids inspired the multiple eyes on the creature's fuzzy face. Clearly, there was no use establishing "Spider-Man" as this alien's proper handle. Besides, it had another nickname: Four Eyes. This alien was also in the Holiday Special, where it warbled the exact same dialogue to the cantina hostess played by Bea Arthur.
According to a 1978 memo, this alien was going to be named Cullatran, but more than a decade later, the name Muftak and the species Talz was applied by the writers of the roleplaying game.
Djas Puhr
A recent Hasbro toy, the detailed and articulated action figure of Djas Puhr has sparked many a fan to ask, "just who is this guy?" He's hard to spot in the cantina, but he's definitely there, with his gleaming black skin and inexpressive face. This character was identified as "Coal Man" during production. A pale-faced version of the same alien species -- Sakiyan -- appears in "The Star Wars Holiday Special." The proper and difficult-to-pronounce name of Djas Puhr came from the Customizable Card Game.
