Harry Potter

Names appearing in "Harry Potter"

1、Harry Potter
①Harry is from Henry.
②Harry is related to Old High German Heri, which means army.

James Potter and Lily Evans

2、Hermione Granger
Hands up if you had been pronouncing Hermione’s name wrong when you first started reading the books. Yep, thought so. Complex pronunciations aside, ‘Her-My-Own-Knee’ is a name rich in mythological value, as in Greek mythology, Hermione was the daughter of King Menelaus of Sparta and his wife, Helen of Troy.

Meanwhile, Granger, according to the Middle English definition, was amusingly an occupational term for bailiff, which considering how much Hermione Granger has to tell off Ron and Harry, is rather fitting.

3、Ron Weasley

4、Albus Dumbledore

You may know already that Dumbledore is an archaic word for bumblebee, which is rather sweet. ‘Albus’ appropriately means white, just like the Professor’s famous beard. But let’s not forget about his many middle names, which go far deeper into Dumbledore’s more complex characteristics.

5、Draco Malfoy
By no means a dramatic coincidence, Draco’s first name is Latin for a terrifying beast that spits fire – or, more specifically, a dragon. You may have noticed that Draco’s name is also part of the Hogwarts school motto: ‘Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus’ – which means ‘Never tickle a sleeping dragon’. We would definitely apply this same logic to Draco too.

As for his beloved last name, you might think Malfoy means ‘rich, blonde and probably quite rude’. Well, not quite, but the term Mal, actually derives from Old French usually means bad or evil and ‘foi’ means ‘faith’ or ‘trust’. How interesting…

6、Tom Marvolo Riddle

We already know that Tom Marvolo Riddle’s name is soaked in a lot of personal meanings for the character. Tom was always aggrieved to use his ‘filthy Muggle father’s name’ as he put it, so devised a new name for his future self, ‘Lord Voldemort’.

The name that Tom avoided so much has been around since the 1700s, and is one of the most popular names in history. Incidentally, both his and Harry’s name of course feature in the phrase ‘Every Tom, Dick or Harry’. Tom usually is defined to mean the male version of something – such as ‘tom cat’.

‘Marvolo’ isn’t a traditional name, and comes from Tom’s pure-blood wizard grandfather, Marvolo Gaunt. As for Riddle, the word as we know it defines to something that puzzles or perplexes which is certainly true for Tom Riddle, but back in the 1800s was a Middle English term to mean ‘perforated with many holes’ – much like when Harry stabbed his diary in Chamber of Secrets, you might say…

7、Remus Lupin

First of all, we have Remus, which is a name known quite well from the Roman myth Romulus and Remus, the tale of the twin brothers who were abandoned at birth, brought up by a she-wolf, and went on to found Rome.

Then there is ‘Lupin’ – derived from the Latin ‘lupinus’ – which means… drum roll… ‘of a wolf’. As such, it would seem that Remus Lupin’s fate was always locked within his name.

参考：

---

1、How did the characters in Harry Potter get their names? What influenced the author?

2、The fascinating etymology behind Harry Potter character names

3、What Jo says about Names and Naming