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star wars - Did Padmé have any family?



I can guess the genuine answer for this is “the prequels make no sense”, however I'm wondering if there's an in-universe answer.


At the end of Revenge of the Sith we see Luke get sent to his step uncle, and Leia adopted by the first person to put their hand up to have her. (A politician who no-one ran any background checks on, and no alarm bells were going off!)


I have a few problems with this. On the surface Leia got the best deal out of this, a life of luxury and space travel, whereas poor Luke got stuck in a desert, not allowed to join the academy and drinking blue milk.


Obviously it makes sense to split the two children, but did Padmé not have any family one of them could have gone with? She obviously had the family villa in Italy and seemed very well-respected and loved by her fellow Nabooians, hence the rather large funeral.


I can't believe her friends/family didn't know she was pregnant, or that with Coruscant’s fantastic medical care, questions weren't raised about whether children survived. (Cue a rather well-off angry old Naboo couple starting an investigation to find their missing grandchild, claiming it's a conspiracy).


So I suppose a TL/DR: did Padmé have any family? If yes, why didn’t one of the children go with them?



Answer



Although most of what has been written about these characters' back story is not canon, they do however exist in canon. Padme's parents are Jobal Naberrie and Ruwee Naberrie.


Padme changed her name to Amidala when she became Queen, and thanks to scott.korin's comment it appears that this is a tradition.


According to the novelization, the Organas were struggling to have a child at the time of Padme's death. It appears that they were blessed to adopt her:




“I can …” Bail Organa stopped, flushing slightly. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Masters; I know little about the Force, but I do know something of love. The Queen and I-well, we’ve always talked of adopting a girl. If you have no objection, I would like to take Leia to Alderaan, and raise her as our daughter. She would be loved with us.”


Yoda and Obi-Wan exchanged a look. Yoda tilted his head. “No happier fate could any child ask for. With our blessing, and that of the Force, let Leia be your child.”



So it seems that the remaining Jedi council were principally responsible for the fate of Luke and Leia, which is understandable because they were likely huge targets for the Empire should it become common knowledge. It's possible that the Jedi had chosen the safest possible places for each child, and the Naberries didn't have the necessary environment to be able to protect either of them (although this last bit is pure conjecture based on my own thoughts).


Discussion in this other question suggests that it was actually the purpose of the Jedi to place Leia in a position where she could be aligned with the Empire, but very easily be "activated" at a later date, even if it didn't happen per se.


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