Transformers One headcanon of mine

I don't think "Orion Pax" is Orion's actual name before being rechristened as Optimus Prime.

You see, other cogless miners such as D-16 and B-127 (and if you want to use technicalities, Elita-1) don't have names the same way other Cybertronians do^*. Rather they have designations. And given how they were treated as second-class citizens, or perhaps even less than that, it makes sense that they wouldn't have been given names the same way other Cybertronians have. So I think, much like his fellow miners, Orion had a designation like "C-01" or something like that. No idea where he derived the "Pax" part of his name from but I like to believe, if his designation was C-01, he most likely derived the "Orion" part from "01". You know, "oh-one" becomes "oh-rye-on".

Or much like B-127, he was just shooting out nicknames until one stuck. But if that were the case, he would probably be kicking himself for not thinking of "Badassatron" before B did.

BTW, if you're wondering why I think Orion's designation before choosing the name "Orion Pax" (and certainly before getting rechristened as Optimus Prime) is "C-01", it's a reference to the original Optimus Prime toy's ID number much in the same way D-16 is a reference to the original Megatron toy's ID number.

* I am aware other miners such as Jazz have names too. But much like Badassatron and Orion, I like to think Jazz picked the name out for himself. It honestly depends if his namesake music genre exists on Cybertron.