Just wondering..does anyone have any opinions?

Hi there, welcome to the forums, before I answer or try to answer your question, can I ask that you take a look at the rules. One liner posts are not allowed on the forums. There is a reason for it that is explained there, so please elaborate in future.

It does say somewhere on JKR's website about naming Harry Potter....there is also an article on her site in which she says, that she collects and remembers names, from places like War memorials, telephone directories, shop fronts, saints, villains, baby naming books and she obviously makes a lot up.

I hope this helps, matbe someone else has a more concise answer.

thanks for that and ill try not to use anymore one liners...sound good????

Mod Edit: I should have made myself more clear...One liners and short posts are prohibited, they do not contirbute much to the discussion, thanks

There was this book I read a while back. It was something along the lines of an autobiography on JK. I remember bits of things and without a clue to where I read it; so I think she got the last name from one of her friends. It was their surname and she liked it much better than her's, thus the reason why she used the last name Potter. As for Harry's first name, I don't really know what she got it from. But I can't be sure this is the true reason why. My brain gets fuzzy at times. xD

I guess, she couldn't give him too meaningfull name. Like she did with other characters. WE had to decide by ourself, whether we like him or not. We get enough information about him. It wouldn't be fun to get information about what he's like just from the name, he's the main character! The same for the rest of trio.

I think its just a plain insignificant name for a boy who would go on to do great things. Good choice I think. Yes,it does leave his character to do the explaining

I don't know actually but I thought it possible that it was a random choice. I guess she needed something simple and that would be easy to remember. And she was very successful! I could not imagine any other more suitable name for the hero of the series.

She has said previously that Harry just popped into her mind, fully formed. It must have been just a *ping* in her head. People have always asked her 'Why not Henrietta?' and shes always said the previous.

I agree with the statement that it was a completley random not to out there or interesting name. I think had JKR given Harry a really out there name it would have taken away from the story. I think that the name Harry popping into her head makes t he most sense!

In her website, on her diary or something it mentioned a family of Potters who lived down the street or something, and she just really liked the name. It's a really ordinary name, which is quite good as Harry didn't really need anything else exceptional about him! I think she choose it (or it just popped into her head like x_Robyn_x said) just to fit him in a tiny bit more into our world, like going to school on a train, and having lots of homework.