When it comes to celebrity babies, it’s usually pretty safe to assume that
the parents will name their child after themselves or another celebrity.
We’ve all seen the countless “mini-me” couples who’ve been publicly
obsessed with imitating other famous people. In some cases, it can get
a little bit creepy. Take Robert Pattinson, for example, whose parents
named their son after himself. It’s almost like he’s becoming a clone
of his father!
However, in the Harry Potter franchise, things are a bit different.
While the parents of some of the famous children in this series might
have named them after popular characters or historic figures, others have
chosen completely random names. Here, we’ll explore the unusual
harrypotter name game and how it all started.
The Harry Potter Franchise
If you’re unfamiliar, Harry Potter is a series of novels by J.K.
Rowling, who also happens to be the creator of Harry Potter
franchise and the author of the best-selling series. The books have been
translated into over 50 languages and sold over 450 million copies worldwide.
In each book, the protagonist Harry Potter explores the mystical
world of magic and fantasy, overcoming great odds, learning new things,
and changing the world for the better.
The success of the franchise inspired a wildly popular movie
series, an amusement park ride, and even a recipe for chocolate cake! If
you’ve never heard of Harry Potter or never read a single book, all of
this might still sound like gibberish to you. Don’t worry, weebly
here to help. Let’s take a quick look at how Harry Potter came to be.
The Early Years
Before we get into the whole naming thing, it’s important to establish
a few basic facts about Harry Potter. First, and most importantly,
Harry Potter is a wizard. Second, he lives with his relatives the
Riddles, who are also his best friends. Finally, he goes to Hogwarts School
of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he learns all he needs to become a
wizard. These are some pretty big deviations from the norm,
especially the last one. In most cases, kids go to regular schools
and learn what they need to know to be successful in life. It is only
in rare cases that they get to attend special schools for their magical
studies.
However, it was the first two points, the fact that Harry Potter
is a wizard and that he lives with his relatives, that made the name
game such a possibility. As fans of the series and franchise will
tell you, wizards and witches are fairly common names in England, so it
was fairly easy for Rowling to pull off these two naming deviations
without creating too much of a scandal. Now let’s dive into the history
of the Harry Potter name game.
The Naming Deviations
In the book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, we are
first introduced to Harry as he’s trying to survive in the Slums. He
has just turned 11 years old and is trying to juggle a number of
difficulties, the most evident of which is trying to stay alive. He
needs to feed his sister, who is seriously ill, or leave her in the
hospital and find work, but he can’t find a job because of his age. He
is forced to steal food in order to survive. One of the things he steals
is a silver dragee from a table in Grimmauld Place, the home of
Potters’ great-grandfather. He takes the opportunity to peek inside and
inspect the contents of the dragee. However, something terrible
happens when he opens the dragee. He becomes incredibly excited
and starts to prattle on about all the wonderful things that he has
learned in his life. It is then that we learn the true meaning of
the dragee. It is a very special kind of beer that can only be bought
from the finest restaurants and supplied to the Royal Families
of Europe!
It is later revealed in the series that the dragee is indeed a very
special kind of beer, one that the wizards and witches of Europe
considered to be the perfect accompaniment to a fine meal.
However, this was not the case. The public had associated the word
dragee with famine and war, so when Harry opens up the packaging and
tastes the delicious liquid, he is disgusted by the taste and vows
never to drink it. Nevertheless, it is this incident that gives him
the idea of naming his firstborn son after the beer. It is an
English custom to give your firstborn son a first name that begins with
the letter H. In this case, that would be Harry. This is exactly
what the young Harry does. He then goes on to name his second son
Hufflepuff after the heroic beast in the Harry Potter franchise
who’s always trying to help the protagonist find his way to
Hogwarts. This is presumably because he wants his sons to attend
the same school as he did. In the third book, Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows, Dumbledore gives Harry a mission to find and destroy
the Philosopher’s Stone, which he eventually succeeds in doing.
Now that we have established that there are two naming deviations
in the entire Harry Potter series, we can get into the whole naming
theme. There are actually a lot more deviations than two. In most
cases, the main characters are given more interesting and unusual
names. It doesn’t hurt that many of the names in this series sound
magical. In fact, some of the names in the book have become
so famous that they are now considered pseudonyms. Here is a short list
of some of the more memorable Harry Potter pseudonyms:
Harvey Pott
In the book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, we find that the
protagonist has grown up and started attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft
and Wizardry. One of his classmates is named Gavril Zilch, whose father
is a well-known novelist. Gavril happens to be writing a book about
wizards and witches, and he asks Harry to be one of the main characters
in the book. Gavril introduces Harry to his friend Wolfgang
Granger, who is a well-known magician and escape artist. The two
men decide to engage in a bit of friendly competition to see who can
escape from the most captive of animals first. The winner is
obviously Wolfgang. Unfortunately for Harry, he
made a contract with the Devil to become his servant and has to
serve him for 100 years. He keeps the name Harvey Pott because his
master calls him Harvey Pott in the contract. In order to escape
this fate, he eventually finds a way to break the contract. On
the way to freedom, he rescues a willing Daphne from the clutches
of Lord Voldemort, the Devil’s bitter adversary. He
eventually breaks the Devil’s spell and frees herself and
her children, and takes the name Tom Riddle when he
decides to go by the name of his family business instead.
However, the name Harvey Pott still sticks, and he
ends up giving it to his firstborn. In the book, we also learn
that the devil is most powerful in the guise of a dog, a ratter
named Nibsy. It was originally a cat who would order him about
but eventually became his toy. This is why the name
Nibsy became so famous. It stands for Nibbler in cat
form, but it’s been adopted as a nickname for any magician
or wizard who does his bidding. Because of this,
wizards and witches across the universe now call Riddle
Harvey Pott. If you’re a dedicated Potter fan, you
already
know that this isn’t the only pseudonym Harry
comes across. In fact, we’ll touch on a few more in just a bit.