Names and their meanings...

[dcgmck]

No: HPFGUIDX 107143

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Lillian" <Roolover93 at c...> 
wrote:
<Intro re: SparkNotes snipped>
> Themes, Motifs, and Symbols. They had a section about some
> of the names in the book. They talked about the origins of
> Dumbledore's name and of Lucius Malfoy's name. 

dcgmck writes:
Dumbledore, which means bumblebee, does seem apt.  Not only is he 
hard-working, but his sting is sharp enough to be painful, even 
deadly (though he has yet to kill anyone of whom we know), and he 
loves sweets, filling Hogwarts with metaphorical honey and using the 
names of treats for his passwords.


Lucius Malfoy's name, however, is a little more problematic for me.  
While Lucius may have the same initial sound as Lucifer, it is a 
common grade school misspelling for "luscious" as well as a Roman 
form of Luke (I think...)  If we're speaking of Biblical allusions, 
Luke was the physician credited with writing the books of Luke and 
Acts.  If the implication is medical, there doesn't seem to be any 
direct canonical evidence as yet that Malfoy was in any way 
responsible for the assassination of Broderick Bode at St. Mungo's or 
that he is otherwise involved with healers and conflicts of interest 
on the ward for those suffering from spell damage such as Lockhart 
and the Longbottoms.  Of course, since he is "Mal"foy, perhaps he is, 
indeed, involved in "malpractice", certainly of magic if not of 
medicine...

Lillian:
> The one that interested me though was what they had to say about 
Gilderoy Lockhart's name. They said that Lockhart's name describes 
his locked heart, or secret identity. I am wondering if that is 
significant.

dcgmck writes:
Well, one of the secrets of Lockhart's identity has to have been that 
he was "fronting" for a wide variety of talented witches and wizards, 
claiming credit for their feats.  One might speculate as well that 
Gilderoy is a gold-painted person of royal blood, a painted popinjay 
of a princeling, but I'm still not convinced that this next title 
will refer to anyone or anything of which we readers have been 
previous apprised.

Lillian:
> I believe that in a J.K.R. interview she said that we would be 
seeing him again, although she may have been talking about when we 
see him in book 5.
> Lillian

dcgmck writes:
On the other hand, it does seem that his appearance on the closed 
ward was gratuitous, lending support to the notion that JKR is merely 
temporizing and will bring back this mindless fop and his memory 
sometime in the next two tomes. Interesting...