Name meanings: Arabella Figg

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 44079

At 19:37 16/09/02 -0500, Richelle Votaw wrote, in the " OoP Prediction 
Derby" thread:

>Arabella Figg, who's name, by the way, I have further piddled with and come
>to be convinced it means "Potter's sanctuary from war."  In Latin, of
>course. (all right, I'll go bang my head on the desk again)

ARRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Sorry, you've hit a VERY sore nerve there.

I am currently on the warpath in HP fandom against some of the more 
fanciful, ill-conceived, ill-informed or just simply incorrectly justified 
etymologies floating around. You may have noticed that I've just been 
dealing with "Voldermortist" in another thread, and "Arabella" is an old 
chestnut which I have been arguing ever since I entered HP fandom last 
November, and which I last addressed on HPFGU last month in message #42623.

Briefly, it all hinges on the meaning of "bella". Expanding on (and 
cleaning up) what I said last time, it does NOT mean "war" - it is a plural 
accusative, and means "wars'" (note apostrophe, ie "belonging to the wars", 
or "of the wars"). In effect, insisting on using that particular word 
origin would establish a meaning for  Arabella of "refuge of the wars", or 
more descriptively, if literally meaninglessly, "the place where the wars 
are safe".

This is COMPLETELY the opposite of what Arabella's role in the story would 
appear to be.

The basic, principal meaning of "bella" is a female nominative singular 
adjective meaning "beautiful"; "ara" is a female nominative singular noun 
meaning "altar", "sanctuary" or "refuge". I leave as an exercise for the 
reader to work out what it might mean.

Note the grammatical concordance, whose absolutely vital importance is 
often lost on people who only speak/write English and have little 
appreciation for the vagaries of inflected languages. I repeat what I said 
last time: Grabbing Latin vocabulary out of the air without considering the 
grammar is a dangerous route to establishing false etymologies.

In fact, I saw an example elsewhere which has gone a step further. 
Obviously having picked up his/her scant knowledge of Latin in oral rather 
than written form, the author insists that "ara" means "alter" (rather than 
"altar"), and using zero knowledge of Latin grammar or etymological 
methodology, has come up with the utterly preposterous "She who alters the 
Potter wars".

I'm off to slash my wrists. Although I might fight the cause of rational 
etymology some more first...