Naming Names (WAS: Who's the baddest of them all?)

[c_voth312 <divaclv@aol.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 47996

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lucky_kari <lucky_kari at y...>" 
<lucky_kari at y...> wrote:
> CMC wrote:
> >And nobody in Middle-Earth seems afraid to say Sauron's name.
> 
> But wait, JKR, imho, took the idea of Voldemort being nameless from
> LotR. The Nameless One, the Dark Lord, the Nameless Shadow, was what
> the people of Gondor called Sauron. Not 'Sauron.' Ever. 
> 

Actually, the idea is much older than Tolkien as well.  The notion 
that names have power--for good or for ill--crops up in various 
folklores.  In particluar, one superstition held that to say Satan's 
name aloud was to invoke his presence.  This is where the 
phrase "Speak of the devil (and he shall appear)" comes from.  As 
with Erised and Galadriel's Mirror, both Rowling and Tolkien are 
drawing on traditions which predate them both.

~Christi