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Post by darlawuzx on Jul 2, 2002 12:02:43 GMT -5
Well, I read somewhere that J.K. chose to name Hermione Hermione because she didn't want girls who acted like her in real life to be teased because they had her name. She wanted a not so common name.
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Post by Sphi on Jul 6, 2002 22:24:15 GMT -5
Here's some things I remember. I'll post more later if I think of some more.
*Dumbledore is Old English for "Bumblebee"
*Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom
*Fleur Delacour is literally "Flower of the Court" in French
*Voldemort means "Flight of Death" in French
*Hermione is from Greek, meaning "Of the Earth"
*I heard this from other people, but never found any actual sources confirming it myself. People say that there was once a Chinese general called Running Weasel who was excellent at Chess. Unfortunately, he met his end when his yellow rat knocked over a torch and his castle burned. Sound familiar......?
*Werewolves can only be killed with silver. Could this be some kind of connection with Peter, who betrayed his friends (almost like killing them himself), and his silver hand?
*to add to what Sandy said about the founding of Rome: Romulus and Remus, both raised both a She-Wolf, had a disagreement about who should rule what. In the end, Romulus killed Remus with a pickaxe. Hope Lupin will be all right in the later books!
*in Latin, Lucifer means "Light-bearing"...sounds positive, if you ask me...maybe Lucius turns on Voldemort later?
*Arabella means "Beautiful Altar" in Latin
*Rubeus is "Red" in Latin - could imply Hagrid's drinking problems
*Sirius means "Dog Star" in Latin
(by now, I think you can kinda tell I'm a Latin freak...)
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Post by Will on Oct 19, 2002 16:23:25 GMT -5
LOCKHART: Lockhart, John Gibson, 1794-1854, was a Scottish novelist & biographer; Peter (as in Pettigrew) was the name of an apostle that betrayed Jesus. ARGUS FILCH: Comes from the Greek goddess Hera's watchman. He was said to have 100 eyes. PARVATI (Patil): Parvati was the Hindu goddess of dance.(Remember the Yule Ball?)She was Lord Shiva's consort and was also known as Uma. ALASTOR MOODY: Alastor means the spirit of solitude (remember he trusted no one), and he was very moody, or temperment [glow=green,2,300]I found all of these on this site: www.geocities.com/hermionewannabe/riddles.html[/glow] |
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Post by aurora on Dec 2, 2002 20:02:49 GMT -5
Hm... I haven't done this in quite some time...
Aragog - "Ara" comes from "arachnid", which is the class spiders belong to. "Gog" was a legendary giant. Together, "giant arachnid".
Cassandra Vablatsky ((author of "Unfogging the Future" ))
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Post by Motley the Mercenary on Dec 7, 2002 19:55:39 GMT -5
the hagrid god of jewels one isn't true. there aren't any names like that anywhere in greek mythology. i think there's a place on the HP4GU pages where it tells about how that got debunked. so did running weasel. those are both false.
i always thought cornelius was a reference to the dwarf who was prince caspian's tutor in the chronicle s of narnia by cs lweis. they're alot alike.
fleur delacoeur with the archaic e in there would be flower of the heart.
also i always figured voldemort wasn't vol=flight but vol like in volition, which means will or choice. will of death. that would make more sense with jk rowling's big point that it's what you choose that matters. voldemort literally means "i choose to cause death."
wormtails silver hand i thought would be a weird reference to the silver hand in celtic mythology. nuada was a danaan warrior who lost his hand in battle and got a new silver one. (the danaans are probably the soure of the elves in tolkien, they were amazing healers, craftsmen and warriors.) he should have been king because he won the big battle against the fir bolg but nobody would let a "blemished" man rule so bres became king instead. i'm not sure how it connects but the silver hand thing is definitely celtic.
argus filch -- yeah argos had 100 eyes and served as a sentry and spy but "filch" means to pilfer or steal. think how much cool stuff that man has confiscated and has stashed in his office.
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Post by En on Dec 8, 2002 14:16:32 GMT -5
This from pyro, posted at TD1:
And this by pottergirl on 2 Jan 2001:
Which is very interesting because Ludo is also the name of the big giant cuddly critter in "Labyrinth," isn't it?
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Post by Motley the Mercenary on Dec 8, 2002 18:59:08 GMT -5
boggart is actually from english mythology. it means a creature that likes to hide in your house and give you a good rattling. bog- is the same root as bugbear or bogeyman. oxford dictionary of english mythology.
also see susan cooper's very weird book the boggart
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Post by minihagrid on Dec 11, 2002 11:56:00 GMT -5
Hmm. Noticed a Lockhart whilst doing a Psychology study the other day....Well known for his theories on how the memory works. Amazing co-incidence really...  |
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Post by Motley the Mercenary on Dec 11, 2002 19:57:10 GMT -5
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Post by aurora on Dec 15, 2002 18:45:15 GMT -5
Actually, I believe JKR said that Hagrid was from old english which means that "you were having a bad night. She says that Hagrid is a big drinker and often has his own bad nights."
Personally, I like finding the etymology of the authors because they're usually an obvious connection between the author and his/her book like Arsenius Jigger who wrote "Magical Drafts and Potions." Arsenic is a poison and jigger is a measure for liquor. Or, Phyllida Spore who wrote "One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi." Phyll refers to plants and a spore is a stage of a fungus.
If I didn't say this before, I get my names&meanings from Nine Muses
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Post by FerretBoizLuva on Jan 5, 2003 2:42:20 GMT -5
Wow....this is very interesting....  No wonder JKR took so long on releasing her books...i mean, looking all this stuff up sure takes quite a bit of time!!
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Post by En on Jan 18, 2003 12:02:12 GMT -5
But that's just it, I don't think she does look it up, or at least not a lot of it. I think she read a lot when she was younger, and she reads with her daughter, and so she has all these mythological characters and ideas in her head already. I mean, she might look up interesting names for her characters that fit them, but I bet most of this is just her wonderful mind making connections between stories she's read and the story she's making. That's genius ;D
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Post by Katarina on Jan 22, 2003 23:24:51 GMT -5
Are all of these "connections" intentional by JKR, or is it just people over-analyzing names and finding things that match? For any name you research, there's so many historical figures ectera with that name who might fit a given situation but that doensn't mean that it was fate or on purpose.
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Post by Sphi on Jan 24, 2003 2:50:23 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, of them were intentional. If you think about it, the names really do hint at the personality/background/fate/etc. of the character. Take Remus Lupin. Remus was raised by a she- wolf along with his twin brother Romulus, who later murdered him and founded the city of Rome. See? There are lots of connections that hinted that Lupin was a werewolf. And perhaps the twin brother/murder stuff will be happening in the near future... but for the sake of Lupin, let's hope not |
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Post by Katarina on Jan 24, 2003 16:16:47 GMT -5
Names like Remus, Hagrid, the Author's etc, yeah, I can understand, but when people start assuming that "the acient meaning of this name when you translate it to this language and then re-arrange the letters it means this in another langauge and you can see how well thought out JKR was." I can't help but think, "No. You just overanalyzed it."
I don't see the connection with Remus Lupin to the myth besides that he's a wolf.
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No wonder JKR took so long on releasing her books...i mean, looking all this stuff up sure takes quite a bit of time!!