Name meanings: Arabella Figg/ Hagrid

[alhewison]

No: HPFGUIDX 44204

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Jesta Hijinx" <jestahijinx at h...> wrote:

I've been reading all of these posts with the overall  sensation that 
JKR is not a Latinist, and that she tends to write with a  light 
touch - sometimes skimming the surface of a deeper meaning in Latin 
or  another tongue, but I really don't think that she spent hours 
poring over Latin grammars building in levels of meaning for us to 
unravel.  I really  don't.  This doesn't mean I don't respect the 
layers and levels of meaning  she *has* built in, but basically a lot 
of the stuff she writes can be read  very fast as a tongue-in-cheek.  
I think that's the way it is with some of  these spells - and I think 
the names are brilliant.  I particularly like  Mobiliarbus - move the 
tree, which may or may not be grammatically precise,  but does convey 
pretty clearly to a reader with a bit of Latin what the sense is.

Ali says:-

Funnily enough your mentioning the "Mobiliarbus" spell is proof of 
JKR's lack of Latin knowledge. The Latin word of tree is "arbor", 
not "arbus". It is often used as an eg of "3rd group" Latin nouns. 
IMHO If JKR had studied Latin she would *not* have made that mistake. 
Instead she would have said something like "mobilaarbor".

I however tend to think that with the "name games" that she has 
undoubtedly played that she has not been going through her Latin 
dictionary at all. She is much more likely to have used a Name 
dictionary. Given that in a local bookshop I saw 10 different name 
dictionaries there is plenty of choice out there. Her Latin 
dictionary appears to have been used fairly extensive for spells. I 
like the results even if they sometimes appear "wrong" to a LOON like 
me!

Ali