Names

[meglet2]

No: HPFGUIDX 39208

We all know the importance JKR gives to names, right. The way they 
offer clues to significant elements of the plot or have symbolic 
importance. I mean we've kicked ourselves often enough on second and 
subsequent readings. (At least I have.) I ask you, Remus Lupin - how 
obvious can you get? The UK edition even featured a werwolf on the 
back cover illustration and I still didn't twig first time round. 
And the big black dog that Harry kept seeing. Be honest, how many of 
us thought of Sirius Black on first reading. And yet I've known for 
years that Sirius is another name for the dog star. I even read a 
children's fantasy novel years ago called 'Dogsbody' that used the 
idea of Sirius the dog star banished to earth in a dog's body. (And 
very good it was too and I often wonder if JKR had read it but all 
that is OT). Not to mention Vol - de - mort and all the death eater 
business etc etc.

So anyone ever thought if 'Potter' could have some sort of symbolic 
importance? Potters shape things don't they. (Shape shifter anyone?) 
They mould and create from clay. The potter at work is even a 
biblical image of God creating humanity, though that is probably 
OTT. I'm not sure that I can really come up with any earth 
shattering significance for Harry's surname but given JKR's previous 
form it does strike me as possible that there is some importance in 
Harry being a Potter; indeed the last of the Potters apparantly. At 
any rate it seems more than a name picked at random from the phone 
book.

Any thoughts?

Mercia