In honor of the HP

Over on Kate's blog, she wrote a post about Harry Potter, in honor of his birthday yesterday.  Don't worry, this post won't be as nerdy as you think it will.  It will be much, much nerdier.  Since Kate enjoys writing Young Adult fiction, we often read and dissect YA books so that we can see how they are put together and how we could make them better.  And since Harry Potter is one of the best known (and most flawed) YA series, that is frequently the target of our ire.

So, in honor of the HP's birthday, and since I am such a giver, I wanted to share with you all one of my many problems with the Harry Potter universe: the names.  So many of the names in this universe are ridiculous descriptors of the person.  Which is OK in the first book, where it is all a whimsical Roald Dahl knockoff, but as the series gets more grown up, these silly names feel more and more out of place.  

When Harry first goes shopping for textbooks, we see our first patently ridiculous names.  He buys a transfiguration textbook by Emeric Switch and a book about magic fungi by Phyllida Spore.  But those could be cutesy pen-names, so let's not dwell on those.

Harry's herbology teacher is named Professor Sprout.  His severe, evil potions teacher is named Severe-us.  The flaxen haired wizard who makes all the women swoon is named Gilderoy (like gilded or golden).  The mean teacher who hurts Harry is named Dolores Umbrage.  It just goes on and on.

Remember that weird chick Luna Lovegood?  Well, if you thought that name was a bit too on the nose for a moonbat-crazy lunatic, you probably forgot about her father, Xenophilius.  Literally the lover of the foreign or strange.  That guy runs a crazy conspiracy newspaper full of way-out-there theories.

Sirius is the name of a star that is also called the Dog Star.  Sirius Black is a guy who turns into a black dog.  You just can't make this stuff up.

Finally, we come to Remus Lupin.  This is where the world broke for me.  Book 3, Remus Lupin.  This is where it stops being whimsical and just becomes nonsensical.  For anyone unfamiliar with the character, Remus was bitten by a werewolf when he was a boy, and turned into a werewolf himself.  This might have been a surprise if his name weren't already "Wolfy Wolfson."  Remus is the name of one of the founders of Rome who was also raised by a wolf, making him a wolf's son.  Lupin is the same as Lupine, which is the adjective to describe something having the quality of wolves.  Wolf-like.  So, the kid who would later become a wolf was named "Wolfy McWolf" at birth?  And it's some big secret as an adult that this shabby guy named Wolfy O'Wolf is a werewolf?  Seriously?  

Anyway, I could keep going, but I won't.  My point is that these silly names fit into silly children's books, but not into serious stories.  I get why JK used these names: they're whimsical and fun.  But they just don't fit in the world that is portrayed after the first few books that fans demand be taken seriously as adult literature.