Star Wars may have introduced the "Skywalker" of the High Republic Era, at least according to the sequel trilogy's definition. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker extended the idea of what it means to be a Skywalker, in a final scene in which Rey claimed the mantle for herself. The idea to make Rey a Skywalker was planned back in 2014, with Lucasfilm's Pablo Hidalgo on record for explaining why he was in favor. "I like the idea that she's going to be our Skywalker, but she's not a Skywalker," he observed. "Then, for our purposes, 'the Skywalker' is really a metaphor. It doesn't have to be something that's directly connected to blood."
The Chosen One is unique, but to be a Skywalker is to be an agent of balance. Since the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, evidence has been building that it is possible there is a Skywalker in every generation. Luke Skywalker appeared to have learned enough to consider Qui-Gon Jinn a Skywalker, differentiating between Skywalkers by blood and by Force philosophy in one in-universe fact book. A mural seen in Star Wars: The Last Jedi suggests the Prime Jedi, the founder of the Jedi Order, was also dedicated to balance - and this may have functioned as a Skywalker as well.
Lucasfilm's latest transmedia initiative explores the High Republic Era, in a range of novels and comics set 200 years before the events of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Intriguingly, Claudia Gray's novel Into The Dark introduces a Jedi Master who may well be the Skywalker of this time period as well, a Jedi who wrestles with questions of light and dark. Cohmac is apparently renowned as both a scholar and a mystic, an expert in matters as diverse as ancient Force rituals and high-crisis hostage negotiations. Into The Dark brings Cohmac face-to-face with terrifying new dark side threats - and he reflects upon them in fascinating philosophical terms, always asking what this means in terms of the balance of the Force.
"I behold the world within myself, he thought. I behold the world without myself.
The mantra had helped soothe him for many years; he liked the balance of it. But it had become too literal, now, to serve as a mantra.
I am a Jedi. I have always been one. It is my identity, one I have never sought to change.
But the Order does not answer the questions that linger within me. The questions only grow over time.
Darkness abides upon this station. It is... too familiar to me now. But the shape it takes here is different and unsettling. Consciousness without a corporeal being. What created this? How did the dark side take this form?
How does the dark side take form anywhere? Sometimes I think we, the Jedi, must be somehow to blame. We who refuse to look at the Force in full, to examine the darkness as well as the light."
Since being a Skywalker means being an agent of balance, that sits uncomfortably with the Jedi Order as it had become even by the High Republic Era - an Order dedicated to the light side of the Force in exclusivity. That was not the Order founded by the Prime Jedi, as evidenced by the mural on Ahch-To which shows him seated in meditation at the point of balance between light and darkness. But it was what the Order became, and ever since it is reasonable to assume those who serve the balance - Jedi like Cohmac, Qui-Gon Jinn, and even Anakin Skywalker - have found themselves chafing under the Jedi focus on the light.
It will be fascinating to see what the future has in store for Master Cohmac. As Darth Vader himself pronounced in one tie-in comic, "Skywalkers die". To be a Skywalker is to wind up in the most dangerous place of all, the place where darkness and light meet, and the consequences can be dramatic. Qui-Gon Jinn's destiny as a Skywalker led to his death in a duel with Darth Maul, Anakin Skywalker became a fearsome Sith Lord before ultimately finding redemption, and his son Luke ultimately found peace in the Force after years of guilt and shame. It is reasonable to assume there will be just as many twists and turns in Master Cohmac's life as well.