name origins

[Joy M]

No: HPFGUIDX 26372

I had a thought today (a likely story, I hear some people mumbling).  
Certain HP words have always seemed sort of light and cute and 
comical and silly to me, like Dumbledore and Hogwarts and Hufflepuff, 
where as others seem downright sinister, like Voldemort and Slytherin 
and Malfoy.  JKR is obviously very good at creating names that have 
the right "feel" to them.  But how much of that feeling is related to 
the rhythm and pitch of the word, and how much is due to our 
associations with other words?

For example, Dumbledore has a light, bouncy sound when you say it 
since it is full of D's and B's.  On the other hand, I think that 
Hogwarts sounds funny to me because it is a combination of two sort 
of humorous words -- hogs, which IMO are funny animals, and warts, 
which for some reason are amusing.  It also makes me think of the 
word "hogwash," which means nonsense.  And while Hufflepuff has sort 
of a fun sound, it is also associated with silliness such as the Big 
Bad Wolf saying "I'll huff and I'll puff..."  I also associate it 
with an unfortunate TV program of my youth (not to be confused with a 
TV program of my unfortunate youth) called H.R. Puffenstuff.  (Oh, 
no, now that theme music is running thru my head.)

The evil names of course have nasty sounds and associations.  
Slytherin sounds like slither, which is something nasty things do, 
and Voldemort starts with the letter V, which has a vicious and 
vampiric sound to it, like a vaccination.  It also has the french 
word for death, "mort," in it.  Malfoy sounds nasty to me more 
because it has the french word for bad, "mal," in it.

Another name that seems negative by association is Crabbe, whose 
first name is Vincent (not Bob or Sam or Bill).  Goyle also sounds 
nasty, too, like boil in oil and (as has been noticed by others) 
gargoyle.

However you look at it, JKR does have a certain genius with creating 
words.

--Joywitch, carefully avoiding the laundry list of current 
controversies