Dr. Evazan
"You'll be dead!" There's one of these guys in every seedy bar, a loudmouth troublemaker with something to prove. Only identified as "grubby human" in the script, this ugly bully boasted having the death sentence on 12 systems. Some sources have mistakenly identified this thug as "Snaggletooth," (long time fans may remember the Jedi Master Quizbook saying this).
In the radio drama, this human was named Roofoo, though in 1989, we learn that he is in truth Dr. Evazan, a sick and twisted doctor who earned the dozen death-marks by mutilating his patients. He has since been established to have numerous aliases, including the Doctor, Doctor Death, and Doctor Cornelius.
Ponda Baba
This is the ill-fated thug that tries to pick a fight with the meek Luke Skywalker. In the script, he is simply called "Creature," and Lucas describes him as a "large, multiple-eyed creature."
The finished alien was realized as a slip-on mask and set of gloves, and had the nickname of Walrus Man. The disarming lightsaber attack was shot practically on stage, with a tear-away arm prop worn by the extra who played Walrus Man. The effect never really worked, and Lucas had to cut around it, obscuring the action editorially. The reveal of the severed arm was shot as an insert after the fact. However, on set in London, Walrus Man had big, awkward fin-like hands. The inserted arm had a hairy claw.
For a time, Walrus Man's proper name was slated to be Russwall, but that name never saw print, and the action figure that Kenner produced bore the simplistic production nickname. Not that many fans seemed to mind -- besides, more than one young action figure collector renamed him "Bum Face" for his inward-curving tusks.
In the 1981 radio dramatization of A New Hope, Walrus Man is given the name of Sawkee. His final name of Ponda Boba didn't come about until 1989, in Galaxy Guide 1, which also revealed him to be an Aqualish. Sawkee is just one of the many aliases this criminal uses.
Swilla Corey
According to production notes, there were several "local girls" on set, meaning female human Tatooine residents that would not require complicated alien masks. One of the extras, noted in continuity logs simply as "Jenny" was to be seen snuggling next to Han Solo. She was cut from the film, but can be seen in a video included in 1997's Behind the Magic CD-ROM from LucasArts. An image of this scene was also published in Star Wars Insider #41 in a fascinating article about an early cut of A New Hope.
Another local girl is a stringy-hair blonde lurking behind Ben Kenobi after the old Jedi puts away his lightsaber. This character was established as Swilla Corey by the Customizable Card Game.
Kabe
The squeaky little rodent who requests a tall blue beverage was known simply as "Bat" on set. Other notes use the nickname "Demon." Though Kabe has since been revealed to be a relatively harmless pickpocket, the original script for A New Hope has the small rodent creature as a cohort to Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba as they accost Luke. If you watch the cantina scene closely, you can see that Evazan exchanges a few words with Kabe before the fight breaks out.
Production notes identify the alien's early proper name as Tink. It would be renamed Kabe and established as a female partner in petty crime to Muftak in Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope.
Labria
Labria, the razor-toothed devil-faced Devaronian, has been revealed to have a checkered past. While Tatooine Manhunt, a roleplaying module published in 1988, and Galaxy Guide 1 suggest him to be a harmless drunk, Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina showed Labria to be a fugitive war criminal named Kardue'sai'Malloc.
Would fans consider this horned miscreant any less sinister if they knew his on-set nickname of "Louie?" He was also simply referred to as "the Devil." This Rick Baker-creation was added to the cantina during the additional photography that filled out the booths with exotic aliens.
