About this episode

Nick Jeffery and John Granger discuss the significance of character names in Rowling's work and their meanings.

Nick Jeffery and John Granger met up last Sunday — St David’s Day in Wales and the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy — to talk about John’s first Hallmarked Man names post, ‘ The Allegorical Cryptonyms of The Hallmarked Man, Part One: Ten Cratylic Character Names and their Embedded Meanings .’ In addition to reviewing the high points of that post, Nick offered his insights about the first names John tried to decipher and John added context to the ‘Name Game’ Rowling Readers globally have been playing for 29 years now, Saturn return. Seven high spots of their rollicking conversation: * Nick shared his belief that Rowling creates the character names she does as much for herself as a writer as for her readers. If the character matches the name, as he sees it, then she has a constant reminder of what that imaginary man or woman does, says, or won’t do or say; * John pushed back on that, first because we’ve been told she changed character names while writing them, but more because of what a name is, namely , an image or icon through which the reader experiences the archetypal reference to which Rowling is referring. He thought this was complementary to Rowling’s other Shed tools…

People in this episode

Host: John Granger

Guest: Nick Jeffery

Topics covered

• character names
• Rowling's writing
• allegorical meanings
• literary analysis
• Hogwarts Professor

Keywords

• Rowling
• character names
• allegory
• literary analysis
• Hogwarts Professor
• St David's Day
• Triumph of Orthodoxy

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Allegorical Cryptonyms of The Hallmarked Man, Part One: Ten Cratylic Character Names and their Embedded Meanings

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