Ludo Bagman

Ludo means to play and a bagman is someone who gains money illicitly.

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Basilisk

Basilisk can be translated to mean 'little king'. A medieval account of the creature reads "...it had to be born of an egg laid during the days of the dog star Sirius by a seven-year-old cock. Such and egg was easy to recognize: it did not have the normal ovoid shape but was spherical. It had no shell, but was covered by a thick skin or membrane. The egg then had to be hatched by a toad, and the result was an unbelievably poisonous monster which was basically a serpent but with some characteristics of the toad and the cock as well."

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Beauxbatons

'Beaux batons' means 'beautiful sticks' in Fench. You could take sticks to mean wands then it would be 'beautiful wands'.

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Sirius Black

The constellation Sirius is also known as the dog star or Canis Major. The dog star is the brightest star in the sky.

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Cho Chang

Cho means both "born at dawn" and "butterfly" in Japanese .

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Crookshanks

Crooked shanks is an old-fashioned way of saying bowl legged.

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Fleur Delacour

Fleur Delacour means 'Flower of the Heart' in French.

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Diagon Alley

Take out the 'e' in Alley and then you have diagonally!

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Albus Dumbledore

Dumbledore means bumble bee in old English. Albus, in Latin, means white.

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Durmstrang

Durmstrang is a plsy on the German phrase 'sturm und drang' which means 'storm and stress'.

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Expecto Patronum

Expecto Patronum can be translated as 'expect a protector' or as 'expect a father'.

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Fawkes



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Argus Filch

Argus, in Greek mythology, was a watchman with a hundred eyes. Filch means to steal in a nasty way.

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Mundungus Fletcher

Mundungus is a foul smelling tobacco and a fletcher is a maker of arrows.

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Professor Flitwick

Flitwick is the name of a town in England

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Fluffy

Fluffy is based on the three-headed dog Cerberus who, in Greek mythology, guarded the entrance to Hades keeping the dead in and the living out.

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Cornelius Fudge

To fudge means to fail to perform as expected.

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Hedwig

Hedwig was a medieval saint.

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Hermes

Percy's owl shares his name with the greek messenger of the gods who wre winged sandals.

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Hermione Granger

Hermione was the daughter of Helen and Menelaus, conceived/born after the Trojan war when Helen was at last reunited with Menelaus. She was affianced to Orestes but Helen gave her in marriage to Neoptolemus (Achilles' son) instead. Supposedly one of the reasons that Orestes murdered Helen.

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Hogwarts Motto

'Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus' means 'never tickle a sleeping dragon' in latin.

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Gilderoy Lockhart

A gild is something dipped into gold to make it appear valuable.

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The Grim

The Grim comes from the large black dogs in Brittish legends. Anyone who spoke to or spied one of these enormous black hounds would die soon after. These dogs were also said to have eyes that shone in darkness.

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Knockturn Alley

Knockturn Alley sounds like nocturnally which is a good name for a street devoted to the Dark Arts.

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Lumos

Lumos means light in latin.

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Remus Lupin

Romulus and Remus were twins who had been abandoned in thier infancy. A she-wolf found them and looked after them.Also, the webmaster of The Wizard Zone has informed me that 'lupus' is latin for wolf.

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Draco Malfoy

Draco means dragon in scholar tongue and Draco was the name of a cruel ruler in Ancient Greece. The snake constellation is also called Draco. His last name, Malfoy, could be derived from "mal" (bad) "foi" (faith), both French.

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Narcissa Malfoy

Narcissus, in greek mythology, was an extremely vain young man who was eventually cursed to fall in love with himself.

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Minerva McGonagall

Minerva is the Roman goddess of Wisdom and War.

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Mirror of Erised

Erised is desire spelled backward. The inscription on the mirror, Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi, says 'I show not your face but your hearts desire' backwards.

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Muggle

The word 'mug' is Brittish slang for 'fool'

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Nimbus broomsticks

Nimbus is a type of raincloud.

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Mrs. Norris

In Jane Austen's Mansfield Park Mrs. Norris is a preacher's wife and is very noay.

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Nox

Nox means night in latin.

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Parvati Patil

The goddess Parvati had a son which her husband Shiva became jealous of. Shiva scorched the childs head with the burning rays of his third eye. Parvati was beside herself with grief and Shiva felt guilty and quickly looked around for another head. The nearest animal was an elephant and Shiva gave it's head to the child. The child became the god Ganesha.

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Peeves

A 'peeve' is something that annoys you.

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Pensieve

Pensieve is almost the word pensive which means deep in thought.

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Severus Snape

The word 'severus' is latin for 'mean and strict' and Snape is the name of a town in England.

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Prof. Sprout

The herbology teacher shares his name with the term for young plant.

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Sibyll Trelawney

A sibyl is a female prophet or fortune teller.

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Veela

Veela are based on mythical creatures called Sirens. They were half-bird, half-women creatures and anybody who heard thier song could not resist them.

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Voldemort

Voldemort can be translated to be 'flight of death' or 'fly from death' in french.

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Ron Weasley

Running Weasel was a warlord in the 6th Dynasty. He was a brilliant stratigist, and he never lost a game of chess. Unfortunately, he died when a rat that had been dyed yellow by his soldiers for fun earlier that day, knocked over a lamp in his palace, burning it to the ground, and killing Running Weasel.

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Wingardium Leviosa

Wingardium leviosa means levitating feather in latin. In the book this spell was used to make a feather float into the air.

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thanks to Laura of HP Wizardry for everything below

Fawkes

Named after Guy Fawkes who British people burn on Bonfires on Nov 5. He tried to blow up Parliament.

Pigwidgeon

: Spelt slightly differently, 'Pigwidgin' means very small.

Dobby

Well, what do you know...it means house elf!!!
Aragog

: I think this comes from two words. ARAchnid (Spider) and Gog which means giant.

Viktor Krum

: in German Krumm means curved, like Krum's nose.



If you know a new origin or would like to add to one already on this page please email me.