Potter Puppet Pals

Everyone knows that J.K.Rowling put a lot of thought into her characters' names. However, I doubt that everyone knows what they actually mean. You have to admit that the work she put in is incredible.
Because they are all so magnificent I decided to narrow it down to what I think are the best five.


Remus J Lupin
Remus is from Romulus and Remus - the founders of Rome. They were brought up by a wolf. The fact that he is named after a fighting brother shows perhaps him fighting against his other half, i.e. his werewolf side.

Lupin is derived from the Latin for wolf: 'lupus'. 'Lupin' itself means wolflike.

The initials RJ are taken from two Monty Python Flying Circus skits, one being "Professor RJ Gumby" and the other being "Dennis Moore, the Lupin Thief".


Draco Lucius Malfoy
Draco, as a descendant of the Black family, traditionally has been named after a constellation. Draco translates into 'dragon' in Latin and into 'serpent' in Greek. In Roman myth, Draco the dragon is killed by Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom (note the McGonagall reference!) In Christian Theology, Satan is described as a dragon. 'Draconian' means extremely severe or cruel. So essentially he isn't very nice.

Lucius, also his father's name, comes from the name of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the Roman tyrant, otherwise known as crazy Nero. It also means 'bright' or 'intelligent', however the reference to Lucifer (i.e. Satan) suggests that he is intelligent and evil. Which can be a bit scary.

Malfoy, in French, means 'bad faith', as in 'mal foi'. And to think - JK was about to call the Malfoy family 'Spinks'.

So from that we can learn that he is absolutely horrid.

Lord Voldemort
Voldy here is even worse than dear Draco. 'Mors' is the Latin for death, and of course our word 'murder' derives from that too. The Proto-Germanic word 'evol' , where English gets its word 'evil' from - this is another evident link. The Arabic word 'demuhrt' means 'dark wizard', as does the Old Russian word 'vuldimortdek'. So there was a lot of research that went into that one.

Hermione Jean Granger
A slightly nicer character is Hermione, though her eyebrows endlessly irritate me. J.K.Rowling thought that naming her Hermione would mean less teasing for girls with the same name as it is so unusual.
Hermione derives from the Ancient Greek Hermes - showing her as witty, inventive and quick-thinking. Her name was actually taken from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, though Miss G here is completely different to her namesake.

Hermione was also a character in Greek Mythology: the daughter of Helen of Troy. She was fought over by Orestes and Neoptolemus, symbolising the rivalry between Viktor Krum and Ron.

Hermione's original middle name was Jane, however, when Umbridge came into the story, J.K.Rowling changed her middle name to Jean.

Granger is another word for farmer, recalling HG's muggle roots. Granger is also a name for the Grange Movement in the USA, involving agricultural activism. This represents Hermione's activism on behalf of the house-elf community. Again, the name was changed before publication - originally it was Puckle.

Ron Bilius Weasley
Dear Won Won is the last of this short list of Harry Potter names. Ronald is the Scottish form of the Scandinavian name Ragnvaldr, meaning 'advice' and 'ruler'. It is from Reginald, which comes from Raginwald, meaning 'prince's counsellor': he was a trusted advisor of Harry Potter.

Bilius comes from 'bile', one of the four humours from Greek philosophers. Yellow bile is connected to fire which is connected to Gryffindor house. Someone with an excess of it was believed to be bad-tempered: like Ron.


So, hope you enjoyed that little bite of knowledge. If you want to know about any other names just comment below. Don't worry, you don't have to have an account - you can comment anonymously. Simple dimple.

By Jess