HI all

I'm not very good in english (a bit rusty) but i rock in latin! here the translations of some latin=english root

Alohomora= Aloho is not latin, mora is obstacle

Colloportus= Collo = glue - portus= door

Engorgio= Ingorgitare (it) eat alot something and fast

Ennervate!= Re give nervs, a way to say revitalize

Ferula= Latin, mean stick for wounds

Flagrate!= latin, flagrans, flagrantis mean burning

Furnunculus= in modern Italia is boils. In latin means also thief

Impervius= latin, unhapproachable

Petrificus Totalus= Latin, Petrificus = make someone in a stone form, totalis = all

Relashio=This is easy is " Rilasciare" (IT) and it means release

Scourgify!= latin, excoriata =to take skin off

Serpensortia= latin, serpen= snake - sortia, can be french or spanish and mean exit (FR sortie, SP, sortida)

Tarantallegra= Italian, is tarantella, that is a classical italian dance, that is quite common in Naples.

Waddiwasi! = No clue, surely is not a word that ha his root in Latin, French, Italian or spanish

well ok that's all hope it will Help

bye bye

Cool! So, J.K. Rowling is probably thinking around the same lines...



Okay, now let;s get seroius. This belongs in another forum, not the "suggestions" place.

Hello there, Latin, welcome to the forums!

Hmm... wonder where that username come from... I have to say, you're pretty good -- you've basically summed up the spells from 'Order of the Phoenix' for us there! The only spell that always confuses me is 'enervate'... I guess the word in English means 'weaken' or something, but the spell sort of is the opposite... revitalizes you, I'd say. Anyway, the point of the story is that I went with the 'revitalize' definition of the word (based on the effects of the spell) on a practice SAT and I got the question wrong because of it. Okay, that was sort of random, but it's a story that I've shared with fellow Harry Potter fans a fair few times... ought to give them a warning, you know...

On a mod-ing note, like Muggle Born Auror said, this topic belongs in a different forum -- I'll transfer it to the 'Lounge' forum for you, in case you're wondering what happened to it.

See you around the forums!

Ups sorry for the wrong forum post!

I would like to explain better the word Ennervate!.

Is common to say in Italy the phrase " Ridare Nervo" (re give nevrs). This is usually used to give in a "mental way" the strengh to continue.

Also i forgot this one

Finite Incantatem!= Finite in Italian is " To stop", Incantatem is spell

Bye

You forgot one.

Lumos: from latin lumen the light.

Thanks for the others!

I noticed there's much significance with names.

I mean, look for ex at Tom Riddle. Riddle as something mysterious, but you can guess it (DD proved he can guess Voldemort's dids).

Here goes Dumbledore- it's a flying, buzzing insect, for me it's connected with freedom and happiness

Severus Snape- Severus means severe, Rowling took it from Latin. Snape- one of its meanings may come from snap- it means something closed, or SURPRISING. Oh, yes, he is!

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley- sounds like random boys.

Draco Malfoy- Draco as a dragon, Malfoy- I have no idea about the part "foy" but Mal- may come from Latin 'malus"=bad.

Remus Lupin- like Romulus and Remus fed by a wolf and Lupin- from the Latin word "Lupus".

Regulus Black- Regulus is a prince in Latin... here comes my suspition that snape and Regulus were friends, and that the Half - blood prince maybe felt more connected to him by his surname

Lord Voldemort- it brings the words "valde' which mean: much, rapidly
and mors, mortis (also from Latin)- death. Will it be possible that he'll die by a rapidly death?

yeah all of these names are quite interesting.....but mayB its just coincidense

MOD EDIT : One-liners are not permitted as this is supposed to be a place for discussion. Please read the rules.

I was told yesterday thay Gryffindor was the name of a phoenix in some celtic saga. I found it interesting.

There is a site actually where they had each and every name translated and worked out their meaning. It goes a lot deeper than most of us think.

Flutterflie

JKR never does anything by coincidence!

Also, there was a girl who was sorted in one of the books (I don't have them handy and can't remember which) whose name is Rose Zeller...

If you say it over and over with different inflections, you will eventually have
Ro-sez-eeler. Ro says healer. A clue???????

I'm going to move this to the general book forum as it doesn't directly relate to book 6, but to all the books.

Flutterflie, can you give me the link to this site? Because these names which I wrote, I found myself (it happens that I know Latin)

So another: Albus=white

There's a whole page of them on the main part of Veritaserum:

http://www.veritaserum.com/info/misc/babynames.shtml

I think it's quite clever to use names with symbolism behind them, derived from mythology and all - although it's no new technique; it's an ancient storytelling convention. At least it shows that she's thinking, though.

I think that there are few mistakes in your veritaserum list (or maybe not mistakes, but different roots and meanings), f. ex.

bellatrix- it's totally from Latin, Nominativus singularis of an adjective, it means: being able tofight hard, warlike, aggressive.

Dolores- its roots are from Latin, because dolor, doloris= pain; dolores=pains

Yeah I'm sure they're not perfect, I just posted them. Whoever wrote them just copied them out of one of those baby name dictionary things, half of them haven't even got the actual root on them, they just say "A familiar form of ... such and such". Which, of course, is not really a lot of good for the purposes of seeing how the name relates to the character.

Some of them I found interesting though, like this one:

"Sybil (Greek) - Prophet. Mythology - Sibyls were oracles who relayed the messages of the gods."

I think some of them are derived from Greek, as well. They're not all latin.

I've noticed that these names have roots in other places as well. I'm sure I read in a book somewhere that Nicolas Flamel was an actual alchemist (part of the Illuminati the book was Angels and Demons by Dan Brown) and also that on researching the priory of Sion after reading the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown that Draco was an ancient dark deceiver or something like that which may help hint towards Draco's part in the next book: (SPOILERS below Please highlight to read)















He may turn against Voldemort and start working for theorder therefore making him quite literally a 'Dark Deceiver'

It's interesting the way the names translate that way...another thing I noticed with Voldemort is if his name is seperated into vol de mort, it translates in French into "flight of death"...somewhat interesting with what Harry now knows that voldemort is doing to try to become immortal...

it says percy means to pierce the VEIL of religious mystery. percy works at the ministry and can figure out how to get sirius out of the veil.


just a thought

Balderdash, yeah, of course you're right, there may be ancient Greek too, and I pointed out only things which I can be sure of, I'm not sure of others...

For example this felix felicis- it means something like Happy of the happy (?)

Or this sectumsempra- I guess it comes from the latin words: seco, secare, secui, sectum, sempra=always, and when I put it alltogether, it comes: forever deeply cut, it makes, sense, isn't it?

aquamenti- Aqua=woda, menti maybe from mens, mentis= water for soul.

Riddikulus=ridiculus= funny

and more...

I love the names she gives her characters. I think all the names give clues to the character's personality. Although I must say, for me, the buzzing bee analogy doesn't fit Dumbledore too well!!

How about the name "Hagrid"? It makes me think of "haggis" that unusual Scottish food made of oatmeal, whiskey and animal organs boiled in a sheep's stomach!! I can picture Hagrid enjoying that!!

Apparently JK Rowling named him "Hagrid" because in Old English "Hagrid" means you've had a bad night (for example, out drinking!)

Got this info from an interesting site, check it out:
www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/hagrid.html

And also ( I suppose);

Levicorpus= a light body (Latin levis, leve=light plus corpus=body)
expelliarmus= we push off something

recently i have been reading a lot about the romans and discovered that there was an Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus who restored stability to the Roman empire after the tumultuous reign of the emperor Commodus, who reigned untill 192 AD,

ok no significant connection appart from the name, but i also discovered that By the end of 195, Albinus was declared a public enemy by Severus. The governor of Britain responded by proclaiming himself emperor and invading Gaul. A weary Roman populace used the anonymity of the crowd at the chariot races to complain about renewed civil war, but it was Gaul that bore the brunt of the fighting. Albinus and his supporters were able to inflict losses on the occasion of the initial attacks, but disorder was so great that opportunistic soldiers could easily operate on their own within the lands under Albinus' nominal control.
in 197, and after a Severan victory at Tournus, Albinus found himself and his army trapped near Lyon. A battle broke out 19 February 197. In the initial fighting, Albinus' troops forced the Severans into retreat, during which Severus fell off his horse. When the Severan cavalry appeared, however, Albinus' army was routed. Lyon was sacked and Albinus, who was trapped in a house along the river Rhône, committed suicide. Severus ordered Albinus' head to be cut off and sent to Rome for display. Many of Albinus' supporters were killed, including a large number of Spanish and Gallic aristocrats. Albinus' wife and children were killed,

well for all of you who have read The Half Blood Prince, im sure you will notice the connection i am trying to put across,

maybe just a coincidence, but interesting non the less

I love the name Cornelius Fudge. How can someone named after a candy be taken seriously? The word "fudge" as a verb can mean to fake or falsify something, which is also fitting...in Book Five, Fudge tries to discredit Harry Potter and Dumbledore by spreading false rumors about them.

one of the most important rules when it comes to reading, if you think it's a coincidence, it probably isn't. we as readers read these book and see stuff. that makes us pretty smart. but the author, whether JKR or Melville, are smart people too. smarter for the most part. only rarely do authors just have coincidences. and even if they say it is, trust the tale not the teller. because if it looks, smells, and taste like a pizza, then it's a pizza, despite what anyone tells you. that's why all the names are well thought out. JKR knows the latin meanings and such for almost every word. i bet she does it so that we can all feel like smart people too. because nothing makes a person feel better than knowing you've excited somebody to looking at things in a new light.

Spoilers!!!! HBP!!!







Albinus comitted suicide? Severus established peace? Sounds similar... Dumbledore didn't commit suicide exactly, but if he planned it, it may look a bit like suicide... when you think that he wanted to be dead if it was the serious reason. Then Severus and peace... oh how I wish he redeemed himself.

great work on albinus and severus.

to answer the malfoy-question: i think it's french as well (like vol-de-mort) mal - bad and foy, foyer-fire so it could mean bad fire.

i recently read vergil's aeneid and there are the names of the newest death eaters in it: allecto - daughter of the night, and deamon of discord (!) and amycus - friend of aeneas, who's a nice person ( as in latin amicus means friend anyway). Now I'm a bit confused here: why would jo name the female death eater and sister after an evil godess, but the brother after friendly caracter.....could that mean that he will turn out good?

any suggestions?

Maybe this Amycus is a kid of a false friend? You know, maybe he behaves friendly to others and it's fake? I don't know...

I've analyzed:
Rictusempra- always with an open mouth (was if aimed at continuous laughing?)
lumos=light (it's from Greek)
nox- night (Latin)
Horcrux is difficult a bit to analyze- crux is a cross but "hor"? Is it from horribilis, e or horrible? In a sense "a horrible cross, a horrible suffering"?

I'm sorry I don't have the link with all the translations anymore. Could it be mugglenet? Sorry guys, I never bookmarked it...

Thanks for the research in terms of Severus and Albinus, I like that. Yeah, Sev will bring peace to the wizarding world when Harry and Volders are dead...

Okay, I feel bad now that I have to add another name-thingy without recalling the link. But it was here in the forums somewhere...

Somehow you can switch the letters from SEVERUS SNAPE to the greek word for "light-bringer". *lol*
I loved that.


Flutterflie

I'd worship you if you tell me which Greek words are these. I know only a bit of ancient greek and light was "lumos" but maybe it changed because I don't see "l" in Severus Snape anywhere?

I will go and look for the post, but not now, I am stuck on the twelfth chapter of my fanfic and I promised to upload it tonight... *sigh*

Okay, some anagrams for Severus Snape:

averseness up
save pureness
pass revenues


*lol*

Flutterflie

Hihihihihi pass revenues Thankies!
I read yesterday that "Sev an' Lily" make "Snively"
And I noticed that when you look at Snape from the end, it makes "Epans", almost like Evans, isn't it? But with "p" which stands on its side... Potter?

Yet again i have stumbled upon JKR's incredible use of vocabulary in her work. Bellatrix Black married into the Lestrange family, nothing weird about that. until you realized that Lestrange without the 'L' is estrange which means "To make hostile, unsympathetic, or indifferent; alienate." (Websters Dictionary) which is exactly what Bellatrix is. Im gonna keep looking for these things, they are fun to find.

Hmm thats very interesting, I never would have noticed that on my own. No offense, but frankly I think you have too much time on your hands. just kidding, thats cool, though.

MOD EDIT : Personal abbreviations ("j/k") are not allowed in the forums. I've edited it for you this time but please make sure you type in full next time. Cheers.

WOW! thats awesome! i never noticed that! very interesting! good luck with finding more!

MOD EDIT : Netspeak and personal abbreviations are not allowed in the forums - "gd" should have been "good" which I've now edited.

Well if you look at the majority of the names, they all have a meaning, especially in French.

• Voldermort is French. "Vol de mort" which means (vol=stole or fly; de=of; mort=death), The flight of death or something like that..when you speak french, it really makes sense.
• Bellatrix: "Bella" in Italian and "Belle" in French means beautiful and "trix" is the pronounciation of the plural of "tricks".
• Same goes to lestrange..it's a French word "l'étrange" or "les étranges" which means strange.
• Riddle: enigma.
• Gryffindor=Griffondor (sp?) (in French) and Griffon in mythology is a legendary animal, a lion with a head and the wings of an eagle..some kind of hypogriffe (sp?)
• Slytherin: Sly= underhanded, deceitful, cunning, crafty, etc..
• Severus: severe
• If you look for Snape in a Fr/En dictionary, you'll find Rogue, which is his name in the French books and it means: haughty, arrogant, etc..
• Lucius: Lucifer, devil
• Malfoy: "mal"=evil (in French) and "foy" is close to "foi" which means faith.
• Narcissa: narcisse (in French) is a plant and someone who is egocentric..
• Dumbledore : Dumb lol (that's why I usually call him dumby ) and I heard some other stuff like bumblebee.
• Dolores: dolorous
• Umbridge: umbrage and in French it's "ombrage", comes from darkness.
• Draco: "drac" means devil in Romanian.
• Bill: which means brain in Romanian.
• Ravenclaw: Raven / claw.
• Hufflepuff: huffe and puff have a lot of meanings.
• Lockheart: lock / heart
• Gilderoy: "gild" means in French something with advantages and in english golden. "Roy" was the way they use to write "roi" in French before which means king.
Oh well..I'm just too lazy to write the others

Sirius Black: Sirius is the name of a star, which is also known as the "Dog Star." Very clever on that one, I thought.

Narcissa: Also from "narcissist," Narcissus --- the self-admirer.

it is wierd that all the Blacks are named after stars. Maybe it means something?
Anyway, Lestrange otherwise known as L'estrange is an old Irish last name. I know this because a great Australian's aunt's sister's married name is L'estrange.

I don't know anyother Harry Potter name origins at the moment.

I love it, cause I study French and Latin, how in class I can actually understand those 2 languages by reading harry potter. Like you know Professer Lupin, Lupus means wolf in Latin. And Leviosa mean up in french its really cool how you can make connections like that. I never thought i would say that, but that makes education fun!!!!

I actually found out a couple weeks ago "Lupus" also is slang for prostitute in Latin...but we won't go there shall we.

I think JKR has put in a huge amount of time concentrating on derivatives in names and spellings to make us readers have fun with her writing. I'm always impressed when I see something recognizable in a Harry Potter text and then compare it to a story/legend/myth and it matches. It makes it interesting, especially all this new information on the Regulus star...

Btw...Happy belated birthday, Slaine mac Roth!

Once upon a time...I was doing my boring homework of German...I was doing a looooong translation until I found in the dictionary the word "krumm", so I looked at the meaning; it said: crooked, to be bent..well, in my opinion it's something that remembers the description of our champion from Durmstrang...isn't it?
That is just one of the many brilliant ideas of J.K. Rowling..she's a genius to choose the names: for examples the name Durmstrang comes from the Romantic Movement "Durm und Strang" in literatury...and I red also a lot of references about Latin language and mythology in the book "The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter".. If you know other points of curiosity or hidden connections, please tell me!!

Malefica

P.s. I'm sorry for possible mistakes!

Hi Malefica! Hmm, that is interesting Krum's name means, 'crooked,to be bent'. Which context do you think Rowling is hinting with Viktor's surname? Is it just describing his appearance, is it a clue of a possible enemy or someone that can be controlled?
I think your topic needs to be moved since you didn't make a poll...

then again, he was described as having a slightly hooked nose (im not sure if thats true but i think it is ) so that might be why , bent= hooked
you never know.

Well, I'm agree with the description of the nose and I also thought at his carriage, a little bit bent over. In the 4th book J.K. Rowling used her knowledge of the forein languages to choose a lot of names, for example Fleur Delacour, as you know, means "Flower of the court" and Beauxbatons is "beautiful wands"... It's very interesting to discovery how she thinks at the names:Remus Lupin, another example, come from the one of the two founders of Rome, Romolo and REMO (a wolf breastfeeded the twins)and the surname "Lupin" is obviously a reference at the werewolf...and Edvige was a german Sister who founded an association for the education of the orphan kids (like Harry Potter) ;P
I repeat: if anyone thinks to know other connections like those, please tell me!
Thanks, Malefica

Hail Malefica!
Maybe I've found a connection!
Doing a homework on Barcelona I've found that the principal street is called the "Avenida Diagonal" and it divide the city diagonally in two parts, it's full of the most importants cafès and shops...like our Diagon Alley!
Bye, Caesar

Has anyone ever wondered how J.K Rowling came up with the word Erised? I think I've figured how she did becuase Erised is desire spelt backwards and since it shows someone's greatest desire I think thats why she calls it the mirror of erised

Look if anyones alreay opened a topic thats like this then please close it, I've searched and didn't find anything that matched this, but I might have missed something...

i never actually realised erised was desire backwards..but then maybe i'm just slow! thats interesting!

Here are a couple other good ones I completely forgot about until now:

Fenrir Greyback --- Fenrir is "gigantic and terrible monster in the shape of a wolf" in Norse legend. I recognized this one immediately, because like many other Norse legends such as Odin and Ragnarok, Fenrir is a summon in at least a couple of Final Fantasy games.


Odo --- Hagrid and Slughorn sing a song about this wizard. Odo has been the name of a saint, a duke, a count, and a pope (which may be where J.K. Rowling came up with it.) Many will also recognize Odo as the name of the changeling from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. His name, Odo Ital, literally meant "nothing" in Bajoran.

Wow this topic is way cool!!!! Everyone of the latin or french terms really decribes the person!! Ya I noticed the Rome thing when we were studing it in depth this year! Romulus and Remus it is strange that JKR picked this name for him because they were raised by wolves! But ya this whole thread is awesomeness!!!!!