Parece improvável.
Entertainment Weekly entrevista J.J. Abrams sobre o filme, e perguntou-lhe sobre a inspiração por trás de alguns dos nomes dos personagens . Segundo ele, o design veio primeiro e o nome veio disso:
Abrams chose the droid's name because it looked round and bouncy. "I named him BB-8 because it was almost onomatopoeia," the director says. "It was sort of how he looked to me, with the 8, obviously, and then the 2 B's."
Não está além da possibilidade de que o design do BB-8 tenha sido inspirado pela munição do BB, tornando o nome indiretamente inspirado por ele, mas parece um pouco improvável. De acordo com um artigo no StarWars.com , o projeto veio do próprio Abrams:
Embora eu não tenha certeza da confirmação explícita, acredita-se que a inspiração do design para o BB-8 veio de um dos primeiros conceitos de Ralph McQuarrie para R2-D2; um artigo do Slashfilm cita o artista dizendo:When it came time to create a new astromech droid for the first film of a new Star Wars trilogy, director J.J. Abrams started as anyone might: he made a sketch on a napkin. It’s a fitting beginning, considering the handmade, warm look and feel of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The sketch was basic — two circles atop one another, with a tiny dot for an eye
I think Artoo was just described as a small robot. I thought of him as running on a giant ball bearing — just a sphere, a circle, wheel-like. He had gyros so he could go in any direction on this ball.
