[the_old_crowd] Re: Black family names (astronomy)

[Monika Huebner]

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 12:08:07 -0000, "Blaise"
<blaise_writer at ...> wrote:

>Catlady wrote: Rastaban is beta Draconis. Was that the name of 
>Rodolphus Lestrange's brother (the fourth man of the Pensieve Four)?
>
>Monika said yes to this, but in my version of OotP Rodolphus' brother 
>is called Rabastan, not Rastaban.

Oops, I am sorry, but I seem to have misread it. Of course it's
Rabastan. Maybe I should get myself new glasses. ;-)

>I can't find Rabastan in my little 
>star dictionary, nor in my classical dictionary. Can anyone enlighten 
>me as to what the name signifies? Or did JKR mean Rastaban and make 
>an error? Or is it just my copy of OotP?

No, I have a British copy, too (as I suppose you have). But I was
wondering about Phineas. I found two "Phineus" in Greek mythology, but
no "Phineas". Maybe we are just too obsessed to find the etymology of
the names in mythology.

>As for Narcissus, as far as I know there is no star or constellation 
>with this name, nor is there any connection between the myth of 
>Narcissus and the stars. So I conclude that JKR chose Narcissa as a 
>name to represent the woman's qualities rather than following the 
>Black family tradition.

I always thought she was named for her qualities, or maybe because
Rowling seems to have a thing for giving her female characters the
names of flowers.

> I suppose one could think up some kind of 
>backstory concerning Narcissa Black's birth and childhood that 
>explains why she was given a non-astronomical name (could she be a 
>bastard child? or her mother had her in a previous marriage?). Any 
>other theories?

Hm, wouldn't Sirius have mentioned this to Harry when he showed him
the family tree? The fact she doesn't look like her sister Bellatrix
(who is dark like Sirius) doesn't mean anything, I think. Genes
sometimes act in a weird fashion. And we don't know what Andromeda
looks like, I was wondering if the "dark goods looks" were a family
trait of the Blacks. (Just musing.)

Monika