Harry Potter Name Generator

The name is the spoiler

There is a man in these books called Remus Lupin.

Lupin comes from the Latin lupinus, meaning of a wolf. Remus was one of the twins in the Roman founding myth, the pair who were suckled by a wolf.

He is a werewolf. The name says so twice, in two different ways, before he has spoken a line.

Most fantasy writers hide their meanings. Rowling puts them on the surface, in a language half her readers have never studied, and then waits. A ten year old reads Remus Lupin and hears a name. A Latin teacher reads it and knows the plot.

That is a very specific and very deliberate trick, and it is the whole engine of naming in these books. The name is not a label. It is a piece of information you have not learned how to read yet.

A dead language, hiding in plain sight

Once you notice, it does not stop.

Severus is Latin for severe or stern, and also the name of a Roman emperor. Draco is Latin for dragon or serpent, and a constellation besides. Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom, which is a heavy thing to hand a teacher. Bellatrix is a star, and the word means a female warrior. Luna is the moon, and she behaves like it.

Sirius is the dog star, the brightest in the sky. The man turns into a dog.

And the dark lord's chosen name reads, in French, as something very close to flight of death. It is also, as everybody discovers eventually, an anagram of the name he was born with, which is the most ordinary name in the entire series.

That last detail is the argument in miniature. The frightening name is invented. The real one is dull. He built the terrible name himself, out of a plain one, exactly as a real person would.

Compare this with the way the Star Wars names were made and you have two completely opposite philosophies of naming, which is worth reading about, because only one of them will work for you.

The surnames are a map of England

Now look at the second names in this list. Bulstrode. Dawlish. Flitwick. Warbeck. Midgeon. Pettigrew.

Some of these are not invented at all.

Flitwick is a real town in Bedfordshire. Dawlish is a real town in Devon, on the sea. Warbeck belonged to a fifteenth century pretender to the English throne. Bulstrode is an old English surname of the kind that has been sitting quietly in parish registers for centuries.

So the first names come from Rome and the surnames come from an Ordnance Survey map. That is not an accident either. The Latin makes the world feel old and coded. The English place names make it feel like it is happening in a village you could drive to.

This is the actual method, and you can use it. Take your meaning from one language and your texture from another. The reader will not be able to say why the names feel simultaneously ancient and local, and they will not need to.

Ancient in front, absurd behind

There is a second pattern working alongside the first, and it is a comic one.

The names in this world are constantly one syllable away from silly. Griphook. Midgeon. Bulstrode. They have the shape of Dickens, who named people Gradgrind and Pumblechook and knew perfectly well that a name can do a character's work before the character arrives.

The books are children's books, and children find names funny. So the grand Latin sits in front, the ridiculous English sits behind, and the two of them hold the tone in place. Solemn and silly, in the same breath, which is exactly the tone of the whole series.

Take one half away and it collapses. A world of pure Latin is a textbook. A world of pure Pumblechook is a farce.

Using one of these

These names are built from the vocabulary of a world somebody else invented, and it is worth being clear about what that means.

Nobody owns the Latin word for wolf, and nobody owns a town in Bedfordshire. Those are yours. What belongs to the author and her publishers are the characters and the world.

So use these for what they are good for. A name for your character in a fan story. A house-elf in a game somebody is running on Sunday. A starting point for a name of your own, which you then push further away.

And if you want to build one from nothing, the method is right there. Choose the meaning first, in a language your reader half recognises. Then find a real place, somewhere near where you grew up, and take its name for the second half.

How these were put together

The names come from a list our team researched and checked by hand, drawing on the naming vocabulary of the books. One is drawn at random each time. It runs on your own device, and nothing you type is sent anywhere. This is an unofficial fan tool and has no connection to the author or her publishers.

Questions people ask about Harry Potter names

Does Remus Lupin's name really mean werewolf?

Twice over. Lupin comes from the Latin for of a wolf, and Remus was raised by one in Roman legend. Readers who knew any Latin worked out what he was long before the book told them.

Why is everything in Latin?

Because Latin does two things at once. It sounds ancient and authoritative, which suits a school of magic, and it hides a meaning from most readers while handing it to a few. The name becomes a reward for knowing something.

Are the surnames real?

Several are. Flitwick and Dawlish are English towns. Warbeck was a real historical figure. English surnames very often began as places, which is why they carry that specific ring of somewhere you could visit.

Is Voldemort French?

It reads as French, and breaks apart into something close to flight of death. It is also an anagram of the name he was born with, which tells you that he assembled it himself, out of a name he hated.

How do I invent a name in this style?

Put the meaning in the first name and the texture in the surname. Take the meaning from Latin, Greek or French, and take the surname from a real map. The clash between the two is the whole effect.

References

1. Harry Potter: main characters' names explained. Screen Rant. https://screenrant.com/harry-potter-main-characters-names-explained/