Subject: Re. "what do they even mean?"
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Posted on: 2022-04-20 03:52:21 UTC

Let's find out! Because I reckon it might be fun to translate what the names actually do mean where possible. {= D

I'll be looking these up primarily on Behind the Name. Will note if I venture elsewhere.

  • Ursula, to start, is "little bear" from the stem ursa "bear [feminine]" + diminutive suffix. *snerk* She's a water bear. {X D
  • Maleficent is... well, yeah, it's pretty much what you think it is. From the Latin maleficens "harmful, evil." (You could throw a reference to dragons in there for funsies, though!)
  • Captain Hook has a given name: James! Seems the names James and Jacob both derive from the Hebrew name יַעֲקֹב (Ya'aqov), meaning ""holder of the heel" or "supplanter", or perhaps from a hypothetical name like יַעֲקֹבְאֵל (Ya'aqov'el), meaning "may God protect." IDK, I think "Supplanter" is a pretty decent name for a pirate. Just "Heel" wouldn't be far off, either. ^_^
  • Jafar means "stream" in Arabic. Huh, that's rather nice.
  • John derives from the Hebrew name יוֹחָנָן (Yochanan) meaning "Yahweh is gracious."
  • Queen of Hearts is a dreary plain-English one. I poked around a bit, though, and found she's called Cora in Once Upon a Time (apparently it's under the Disney umbrella). I suspect it's meant as a derivative of corazon and would thus mean "heart," but BtN says it comes from the Greek name Kore, which means "maiden" and is another name for Persephone.

So there's the original six. I'd stop there, but I actually looked up Lady Tremaine and Mother Gothel earlier today, so:

  • Tremaine is a Cornish place-name meaning something like "stone settlement," "stone town," "town encircled with stone"; sources vary. It's only on BtN as a user-submitted name, so I skimmed the Google results for more info. I'm shocked it isn't French. I could've sworn the story was French...
  • Gothel isn't on BtN at all, and with good reason! To quote the Disney Wiki, it's "not a personal name at all, but an old-fashioned occupational word meaning 'nurse' or 'foster mother,' which the Grimms added to increase up [sic] the old-time German atmosphere of the story." I don't know why this amuses me as much as it does. {X D

~Neshomeh

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