Gilderoy (was also ..., DADA, Quotes)

[rcraigharman at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19758

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Neil Ward" <neilward at d...> wrote:
> "-roy" could be derived from the French for king, but "-eroy" may
> be a twisting of Eros - referring to sexual love.  Both would work,
> because Lockhart appears to regard himself as a 'king' among men,
> and comes across as a pinup that no woman (or some men) can
> resist*, but he is making false claims - gilding - in both
> departments.  In fact, we can see that he's not the solid gold he
> claims; but fool's gold.

Um, the speculation of "-eroy" being a play on "Eros" is imho probably
a bit too much.  I'm sure someone can explain why a break between
the "d" and "e" is unlikely better than I can, but I'll simply say
that from experience I doubt it's correct.

In general, names starting with "Guil-" are Romance-language forms
of Germanic names starting with "Wil-", which has the same root and
meaning as the English "will" (as in willpower).

I would venture that there is an older underlying form that
probably comes down to "will of [the] king".

However, I found a web site which notes that "proud as Guilderoy" is
a Newfouldland expression and that would seem to be a better
explanation of the source than the etymology.  See:

http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Heritage/NGB/Articles/folk-lore.html

....Craig