Names and their underlying mythology in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter-Novels

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Leipzig (Institut für Anglistik), course: Harry Potter and The End, language: English, abstract: The Harry Potter series display such a complex set of plots with so many references to history, legend and literature, with so many playfully arranged puns according to the names of characters, creatures, items or places that one cannot easily decide where to begin with an examination that may befit the extent of a seminar paper. The finally chosen scope of this paper refers to my general interest in mythology and legend as well as to Rowling's admiring aptitude to equip her characters from an extraordinary variety of backgrounds. Names are the most obvious means of depicting literary characters and their intended personalities. Yet, considering the multiplicity of those characters in the ever further developed seven novels, further specification appears to be necessary to meet the demands of this paper. Therefore, its focus is limited to character names and in that to several selected characters only, whose names demonstrate mythological background most efficiently. To that effect, I am not exclusively following a selective principle regarding the characters' significance in the books. Surely enough, there are several major characters bearing names grounded on mythology, yet Rowling placed so many according hints and links on minor characters and on figures not even acting in the story(ies) themselves that it would seem a squandering of her labour to concentrate on particular 'significant' characters only. [...]