The series has many of these, and an exhaustive list of such examples can be found here
. Indeed, certain characters "just happen" to have names that relate to what they are, to the point of providing more astute readers with a possible Spoiler:- As an example, if you hated Dolores Umbridge, well, guess what? The author wanted you to feel that way. Dolores comes from Spanish, and it means "pains". Umbridge is pronounced just like the word "umbrage" (ˈʌm.brɪdʒ), and it means "feeling of anger or annoyance caused by something offensive". What an apt name!
- Hermione is the female version of Hermes, the messenger of the gods of Olympus, and also the god of knowledge.
- The Roman counterpart of Hermes is Mercury, which chemical symbol is "Hg", the same as Hermione Granger's initials. There are also theories that Hermione is intended to represent Mercury, the intelligent, cold "White Queen" in alchemy.
- It is also the name of the Queen in The Winter's Tale, who was turned into a statue, as Hermione was petrified in book two.
- The Gaunts were a once-powerful magical family, now reduced to squalor; "gaunt" means lean and haggard. As for its members:
- Marvolo is probably named after Malvolio, a character from the Shakespearean comedy Twelfth Night, who despises all kinds of fun, much like how Marvolo despised anything not related to pureblood supremacy, which led him to a life of poverty. It also brings to mind the word "marvelous", while he was an Impoverished Patrician with delusions of grandeur.
- Morfin is a variation of the French surname Morfey, which means "ill-fated". Pretty fitting for someone who was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. It also sounds like "morphine", a drug that eases pain, when his life was anything but.
- Merope is the name of a nymph from Greek mythology, one of the seven Pleiades stars. She is the faintest of them all because it is said that she chooses to marry a mortal, causing her brightness to dim. Merope Gaunt, a pureblood wizard, married a Muggle, Tom Riddle Sr. (however, in a twist, her magical talents flourished during that time, as she was no longer under her father's and brother's abuses). Also, the mythological Merope's husband is Sisyphus, who famously cheats death twice and for this reason is doomed to carry a boulder atop a hill for all eternity. While Tom Riddle Sr. did not suffer that fate, Merope named their son after him. Said son embarks on a quest of immortality and is eventually doomed to live a life in purgatory, unable to move on.
- Lucius Malfoy's first name means "light", which makes no sense unless you know Lucius Tiberius, a Roman procurator / Emperor who is the enemy of King Arthur.
- Salazar Slytherin is associated with snakes, as his last name might suggest. His first name may be a reference to Antonio Salazar, the Portuguese dictator.
- Rowena Ravenclaw, and the house named after her, is associated with intelligence. The raven is one of the smartest birds there is.
- "Alastor" roughly means "avenger" in Greek. Alastor Moody seeks and captures criminal wizards.
- Xenophilius Lovegood, Luna's father. His first name means Lover of Aliens, literally, but the Lovegoods are strange people who love strange things. Aliens as in unknown things, rather than extraterrestrials, by the way.
- The ominous thestrals sound much like the Old English word for darkness, "theostru."
- Ignotus Peverell: "ignotus" is Latin for "pardoned". Makes sense when you consider that he was essentially pardoned by Death.
- The first name of Professor Snape, "Severus", means "strict, severe, harsh, serious" to the point of "cruel". Also the name of a Roman emperor.
- Also, his initials are very sibilant.
- Lily also “severed” their friendship when he called her the wizarding equivalent of the n-word.
- Pronounce his first name differently, and it no longer seems accidental that he once invented a combat spell that slices through or severs an enemy's flesh.
- "Snape" ('to outrage, disgrace'), though Rowling claims the surname came from a random English town she saw on a map.
- "Beauxbatons", the French wizard school, means "handsome sticks" or "staffs", which is close enough to "handsome wands".
- "Durmstrang" sounds an awful lot like "sturm und drang", a German expression meaning "storm and strife" or "storm and longing".
- "Fleur Delacour", 'flower of the court'.
- Professor Remus Lupin is a werewolf — "Remus" being a mythical child raised by wolves (brother to Romulus, founder of Rome), and "Lupin" as described above. In addition, out of the two Roman brothers, guess which one died. He appears aware of this as he uses "Romulus" as a pseudonym for a radio broadcast. This was lampshaded by Movies in 15 Minutes.Snape: I want two rolls of parchment on werewolves by tomorrow, including what WEREWOLVES look like, how to detect WEREWOLVES in the faculty of a British boarding school for wizards, and the definition of the Latin word "lupus". CLASS DISMISSED!
- Another werewolf is called Fenrir Greyback. Fenrir is a wolf in Norse Mythology who is destined to kill Odin.
- Greyback somewhat describes a wolf as well.
- Sirius Black could turn into a black dog (Sirius being known as the Dog Star). His dog form is mistaken for a Grim, one of names for the Black Dog myth, which in some legends aids people (hint) but in many either brings or signals doom (i.e., they have a bad reputation). Similarly, "dog days" were named because the appearance of Sirius in Egypt coincided with the flooding of the Nile. Aaand "black dog" also refers to depression. He really didn't have a chance.
- Phineas Nigellus Black was Hogwarts' least popular headmaster. Nigellus derives from the Gaelic word for "champion", but also looks a lot like niger, the Latin for "black". Also, the whole Black family (except Sirius) are notoriously into Dark magic.
- Bellatrix means "female warrior", a fitting name.
- Regulus Black's name seems a bit at odds with what we hear from Sirius. Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo, the Lion. The term 'lion-hearted' refers to someone with courage, while Sirius derisively informs Harry that his brother was a coward. He was wrong, of course. Regulus was brave enough to betray Voldemort and steal one of his Horcruxes! Perhaps he was a Gryffindor at heart?
- The aromatic Mundungus Fletcher's first name is an obsolete word for tobacco with an unpleasant odor.
- It becomes more apparent when people use his nickname, "Dung."
- "James" means "he supplanted", and James Potter supplants Snape's place as Lily's best friend before becoming her love interest. Probably coincidence, since James is also one of the commonest names in England.
- Voldemort. His name is derived from a French term meaning "flight from death" (though in this case, the French word "Vol" is referring to the literal meaning of "flight"), signifying his goal of immortality via the Horcruxes. Voldemort could also stand for "stealing death", "vol" in French meaning either "flight" or "theft".
- Even his real name Tom Marvolo Riddle has some significance, Marvolo connoting marvelous as mentioned above, and Riddle hinting at the mysterious.
- "Tom" is significant too. It's a common name for him to get rid of when he becomes the Dark Lord. As he says, "there are a lot of Toms".
- Tom also means twin, which—if Voldemort were aware of that—would have made him feel even less unique.
- It's a given that any wizard character in the series will have some kind of meaningful name (unless their father was a Muggle). Another example would be Kingsley Shacklebolt, who is an adept and trustworthy wizard who often protects people from harm. And becomes Minister of Magic in the end, the closest thing the Wizarding World has to a king.
- "Harry" is J.K. Rowling's favorite boy name and means "power". Harry was prophesied to have "power the Dark Lord knows not".
- It also means 'home ruler' and 'army leader', and as a verb, 'destroy'.
- Luna Lovegood has pale hair and eyes, so she resembles the moon. She is also a Cloudcuckoolander. Say, did you happen to know that "luna" is the root word for "lunatic", due to an ancient superstition about the moon causing madness? Oh, and in Order of the Phoenix it is revealed that her Patronus is a hare, an animal also associated with the moon. Arguably her last name as well, when you consider how much she values her friends.
- Pomona Sprout - Pomona is the goddess of abundance and means Fruit in Latin. Sprout is, well, sprout. Teaches herbology, dealing with plants and herbs.
- Professor Minerva McGonagall's name comes from the Roman goddess of wisdom, strength, and skill - which is a fitting moniker for the staunchest bastion of Hogwarts throughout all seven novels. Wise, skilled, and incredibly powerful, McGonagall is consistently shown to be a truly, unambiguously good character, and is one of the few major supporting characters Harry never doubts - and one of the few adults he truly trusts.
- On the other hand, her last name is an inversion: Rowling took the name McGonagall from a legendarily talentless Scottish poet because she thought it was funny that a witch as powerful and skilled as McGonagall should be even distantly related to someone so untalented.
- The house-elf Kreacher's name is spells like Kriecher, which is German for "toady" or "bootlick". More likely it's just a phonetic spelling of "Creature," which nicely sums up how his original owners treat him — as a monstrous thing, not a person.
- The name Albus is Latin for white, which fits considerably as white tends to translate to good.
- His surname, Dumbledore, is an early English word for "bumblebee," which Rowling reports as a reference to his love of music.
- Lucius is Latin for light which sort of fits considering his notorious fair hair. Also the root of Lucifer, the light bringer.
- His son, Draco, is named after the Draco constellation, a dragon. This fits in with the Black family tradition of naming one's children after celestial objects (Draco's mother, Narcissa, was a Black before marrying Lucius). Interestingly, in Roman legend, the dragon was killed by Minerva and tossed into the sky. Draco was also the name of an ancient Greek legislator whose laws were notoriously harsh.
- His wife's name, Narcissa, is derived from Narcissus, a beautiful but vain character in Greek mythology from which the term narcissism, which refers to vanity and elitism, is derived. The name can also be derived from the flower by the same name, known for its narcotic properties. There is also a Slytherin connection to Narcissa's name due to its association with the Narcisse snake pits.
- The name Malfoy comes from the old French "male [mauvaise] foi", meaning bad faith.
- Even the more common names have purposeful meanings behind them. Ronald means "king". Weasley is our king! According to Word of God, Rowling likes weasels and ferrets, and wanted to give them a more positive reputation.
- All the in-universe authors of Harry's schoolbooks are named like this (e.g. "Newt Scamander" references the salamander, once believed to be magical; "Cassandra Vlabatsky" references both Cassandra and Madame Blavatsky, both famous seers).
- Hedwig is named after a patron saint of orphans. Fittingly, she is the pet and companion of Harry, an orphaned child. And she dies in the opening of Deathly Hallows—the book where Harry becomes truly independent.
- Voldemort's snake and Horcrux Nagini may be a Shout-Out to Rikki Tikki Tavi, where the two villains are snakes named Nag and Nagaina. And nagas, of course.
- A minor, humorous example is a minor criminal in the fifth book, Willy Widdershins, who gets in trouble for pranking muggles by jinxing toilets to flush in reverse, and later earns a pardon by spying on Harry and friends. 'Widdershins' mean 'counter-clockwise' or the reverse of the direction a toilet would normally flush in.
- Neville Longbottom's first name may refer to Neville Chamberlain, as he is known for being kind of weak and cowardly.
- Peeves the Poltergeist whose name is quite fitting as he peeves the staff and students of Hogwarts at every chance he gets.
- Newt Scamander’s name is obviously a play on newts and salamanders. In addition, one of his middle names is Artemis, the Greek goddess of animals and the night. He’s a Magizoologist.
- He also shares his name with the Greek river god Scamander, and although this etymology is not universally accepted, it appears that the original Greek name, Skamandros, combines the elements "skaios" (awkward) and "andros" (man). "Awkward man" is a fitting description for his character as portrayed in the Fantastic Beasts movies.
- If that's not enough, "Scamander" is also the name of a river from Jack Vance's Dying Earth. A wide variety of that setting's fantastic beasts - erbs, gids, demodands, hoons - lurk near its confluence with the river Asc.
- Newt’s brother Theseus shares a name with the Classical Greek hero who united Athens and slayed a Minotaur. Theseus is a brave Auror who fights Grindelwald.
- Not a character, but Nurmengard is almost certainly meant to sound like Nuremberg.
- Eventually this trope's prevalence would be lampshaded on Potter more with the job of Naming Seers who literally give Prophetic Names for a price. They've become much less prevalent around Harry Potter's generation, as parents disliked hearing snippets of their child's future.
- Cho Chang (rendered as 張秋 in the Chinese translations) has a given name that means "autumn", and her full name sounds very similar to "chóuchàng", 惆悵 ("melancholy"), reflecting her grief she experiences at the end of the fourth book and into the fifth. It is harder to guess without diacritics or any kind of explanation, but one possibility is "free butterfly", referring to her Quidditch prowess.
- Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore introduces a Chinese politician named Liu Tao as a character running for the chairmanship of the International Confederation of Wizards. Liu was the name of the family who ruled China during the Han dynasty.
- The sibyls were female prophetesses and oracles in the Ancient World. Sybill Trelawney teaches Divination and is a true Seer (even if most of her prophecies are bollocks).
