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HARRY POTTER NAMES: Beyond Harry & Hermione

harrypotterbig1 The Harry Potter books are a name lover’s dream, author J. K. Rowling being probably the most prolific and creative character namer since Charles Dickens. Her seven Harry Potter books have an enormous cast of magical wizards and wizards-in-training, witches, ghosts, Hogwarts School professors and students–most of them named with great gusto, humor, and a genius for witty wordplay and cleverly engineered misspellings, interweaving Greek and Latin roots with skill and panache. Like Dickens, Rowling takes delight in matching name to nature and employs symbolism as well, as for instance calling Harry’s good and pure mother Lily.

A favorite trick of hers is drawing characters’ names from the realm of astronomy, thus producing such celestial names as:

ANDROMEDA –a constellation in the Northern sky

BELLATRIX — a star in the constellation Orion

CASSIOPEIA — another constellation in the Northern sky

DRACO — a constellation known as Draco the Dragon

LUNA – the moon

POLLUX — one of the twin stars of Gemini

SCORPIUS – a constellation representing a scorpion

SIRIUS — the brightest star in the night sky

Beyond these–and certainly less extreme than such fanciful inventions as Mundungus, Nymphadora and Gwenog– are many perfectly usable, interesting and attractive name from the standard lexicon–several of them already nameberry faves. Be warned though that some of them might be attached to some pretty unsavory characters:

GIRLS

ELLADORA

BOYS

BARTEMIUS

ELLERBY

FALCO

***NOTE: If you haven’t listed your current Top 10 favorite boys’ names yet, and would like to be included in the tally of nameberry faves, go to the Message Boards, under Boys’ Names, CURRENT TOP TEN, and do so now!

Tags: baby names from books, baby names from movies, Bellatrix, celestial names, Draco, Harry Potter, Harry Potter baby names, Harry Potter names, Hermione, Hogwarts, J. K. Rowling, Luna

This entry was posted on Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 2:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized, baby names from books, baby names from movies, boys' names, classic baby names, creative names for boys, creative names for girls, exotic baby names, girl names, girls' names, literary baby names, name ideas, quirky names, unusual baby names . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

20 Responses to “HARRY POTTER NAMES: Beyond Harry & Hermione”

Barbara Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 3:12 am

What, you missed Regulus? Remus? ;p

Other ones:
Godric
Salazar
Rowena
Helga
Minerva
Albus

Lots of them.

And if you just want to use it as inspiration for a star name, try here: http://www.obliquity.com/skyeye/misc/name.html

I personally like Adhara.

namefan Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 8:51 am

Even though she managed to come up with all those wonderful character names, she was much more ordinary and trendy when she named her daughter Mackenzie. (I remember someone on another board making a similar comment when she was born in 2005.)

namefan Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 8:52 am

Forgot to mention this in the last comment, but the reason that was brought up on that other forum I mentioned is that apparently she was so knowledgable on the elements that made up names but yet she named her daughter a name that has a “son of” meaning.

Nephele Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 10:05 am

An excellent list, Linda! Even though I know you had many more names from the Potter universe in your collection, I think the ones you chose to list here are a good representation of the most likely names for parents’ consideration.

– Nephele

Lauren Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 10:31 am

I am so excited this list came out! I have a little Lucy Ginevra due to arrive in just about 5 weeks!

esperrosa Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 1:50 pm

i think many of these names were a bit “old” or different than trendy names because many of them were, after all, wizards, who seemed to have slightly different naming styles. a very interesting list!

Gigi Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 5:40 pm

All three of Rowling’s children have quite normal names.
Jessica, David and Mackenzie

AmyM Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 5:40 pm

I’ve always adored the names in Harry Potter, and I was really excited to see this blog. When reading the books I was always looking forward to new characters to find out their names! I love the Astonomical theme, and many character’s names have a floral theme too. (:

Tracey Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 6:31 pm

I LOVE the names in Harry Potter (although I’ve never been fond of “Ron” and “Harry” as names–both seemed pretty outdated but not enough so to be remotely in when she started the series, but maybe that was the point?). My daughter Arabella often gets called Bellatrix.

I know those deatheater twins were awful, but their names were pretty cool: Alecto and Amycus Carrow.

I also like Victoire.

Katy Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 7:06 pm

I love that you have this list! It combines two of my passions: names and Harry Potter

Here are a couple more Potter names that I like:

Arabella
Bane
Poppy
Pomona
Godric
Felix
Remus
Hugo
Marietta
Cedric
Cormac
Cho
Seamus
Sybil
Verity

Charlotte Vera Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 8:03 pm

I love how much though Rowling put into naming her characters. Both my husband and I wanted to use Hermione for our daughter but were withheld from doing so due to the popularity of the novels. It’s really too bad, because they have some absolutely fantastic names.

Erin Says:

August 10th, 2009 at 8:06 pm

My son, Ronan, was born in Sept. 2003. I remember sitting in the recliner nursing and reading her latest book just after he was born, and coming across a centaur named Ronan. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized he was only mentioned once. Whew!

Sebastiane Says:

August 11th, 2009 at 12:57 pm

I adore these,

APOLLINE

ARAMINTA

ARTEMISIA

ASTORIA

AURORA

BEATRIX

CELESTINA

CHARIS

DRUELLA

ELLADORA

EMMELINE

FLEUR

GINEVRA

HERMIONE

HONORIA

ISLA-already popular in Great Britain

LAVENDER-another cool colour name

LUCRETIA

MAGENTA-such a cool name!

MIRABELLA

PANSY

PENELOPE

PHYLLIDA

URSULA

CADMUS

CRISPIN

DEDALUS

DEXTER-this has, surprisingly, gotten trendy in Sweden. I can see it rising here in the States, thanks to the Showtime Series of the same name

FALCO

FLAVIUS-adore the feminine versions of Flavia and Flaviana as well

GIDEON

HAMISH

IGNATIUS

INIGO

IVOR

LORCAN

MAGNUS-a Scandinavian classic that never goes out of style way up North

MARIUS-this is quite popular in Europe at the moment, especially in Scandinavia and Poland

OCTAVIUS

ORSINO-I also love the feminine version of Orsina

OTTO

PHINEAS

TARQUIN

THADDEUS

TIBERIUS

Mookie Says:

August 11th, 2009 at 7:14 pm

I’ve read and reread and reread the series, and I love them to death, and I’m a stickler for details, but I don’t remember half of these names!

Marissa Says:

August 11th, 2009 at 9:15 pm

I love Bellatrix – it’s perfectly accessible with “Bella” but also reminiscent of Beatrix…
It’s just a shame that not only is she such an evil villain in the series, but since it’s not even a real name it will always and forever be associated with her.

Clare Spinney Says:

August 12th, 2009 at 3:51 pm

Love love Harry Potter names! We also considered Hermione for one of our daughters, but also discounted it be cause of perceived popularity and people saying ‘oh you named her after the character’
Also please stop mentioning Inigo in virtually every boys name list I come across as we have just named our son this and I really don’t want it to become popular(in the UK)!! All our children have unusual names – 3 DD’s Halcyon, Octavia and Ariadne – and I’m a bit put out that Ariane seems to be gaining popularity as its a bit close to Ariadne! So enough, keep Inigo secret.

Emz Says:

August 13th, 2009 at 9:44 pm

I’m pretty sure Gwennog’s a real Welsh name but it’s proper fug nevertheless. I saw a BA for a little Gwenno recently, which I kind of liked except that it makes me think of guano.

I love Falco but I think it’s more of a name for a horse than a boy.

LinaRose Says:

August 14th, 2009 at 7:46 pm

i would just like to put, though i love the harry potter series as well, J.K. Rowling did not “make up” these names. She did not make up the creatures, and many of the background stories were from actually mythological stories. She has merely researched the hell out of Mideval and Norse stories.

Kate Says:

September 1st, 2009 at 11:42 am

I love the Harry Potter names!

I am considering using the name Lavender and/or Luna as my daughter’s name

Malia Says:

September 24th, 2009 at 5:24 pm

I am learning latin and one of the interesting things I noticed was most of J.K. Rowling’s characters had latin based names. Lupus means wolf in latin, Servus means servant, bella means war (bellatrix).