"Marvolo" mashes together "marvellous" and the Latin term "volo," which can mean either "to desire" or "to move rapidly." Voldemort rapidly ascended into becoming a famous and terrifying figure. "Thomas" is derived from a Hebrew word meaning "twin," which could be a reference to his unique connection with Harry Potter. He changed it precisely because of how common it was. The name "Tom" is one of the most common names in the world, which speaks to how anonymous and underappreciated Riddle felt when he was younger, before he became Lord Voldemort. "Brian" is often thought to be derived from an Old Celtic word that roughly means "noble," but I suspect Rowling was making a tongue-in-cheek joke by putting an exceptionally normal name alongside all the other Rowling-esque ones.Īnd finally, "Dumbledore" is an Old English word for "bumblebee." "Because Albus Dumbledore is very fond of music, I always imagined him as sort of humming to himself a lot," Rowling said in a 1999 interview."Ĭhristian Coulson and Ralph Fiennes as Tom Riddle, or Lord Voldemort. "Wulfric" is an Anglo-Saxon name that means "wolf ruler or "wolf power." Dumbledore doesn't really have anything to do with wolves, as far as we know, so Rowling may have been nodding to Wulfric of Haselbury, a 12th-century British figure who was known as a miracle worker.
It's also notable that Dumbledore died soon after drinking from a chalice, which contained one of Voldemort's horcruxes. Rowling could have chosen the name to refer to Dumbledore's bravery, sense of history, and inquisitiveness. He was the original knight to search for the lost grail. "Percival" was one of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. "Albus" is Latin for "white," which could have some kind of symbolic explanation, but could also just refer to his beard. Rowling also once considered "Puckle" as Hermione's last name.
"Granger" is a somewhat common English and French name, an occupational name that refers to a farm worker who dealt with grain. "Jean" is also the middle name of Rowling's daughter Mackenzie, and it's rooted in a Latin word meaning "god is gracious." Prior to that, Rowling said in interviews that her middle name was actually "Jane," but she later changed it because she didn't want her to share a middle name with Dolores Umbridge. In the books, it wasn't encoded as "Jean" until "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," where she's in Dumbledore's will. Rowling also made sure the name was uncommon because she "didn't want a lot of fairly hard-working little girls to be teased if ever the book was published."Īt some point in drafting the books, Rowling changed Hermione's middle name.
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She said the name is a reflection of her parents, "a pair of professional dentists, who liked to prove how clever they were." The name itself is older than that - Hermione is the daughter of Helen of Troy and King Menelaus in Greek mythology. Rowling got the name "Hermione" from William Shakespeare's "A Winter's Tale," but she doesn't think her character and Shakespeare's version have much in common.
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