Artwork by Sveta Dorosheva
Now we get to the fun part of this series of posts — the names!
Lewis very kindly supplied a number of names for his major and minor faun characters, and they all ended with -us.
- Dumnus
- Girbius
- Mentius
- Nausus
- Nimienus
- Obentinus
- Orruns
- Oscuns
- Tumnus
- Urnus
- Voltinus
- Voluns
Going by this, we can assume all faun names ended with -us.
Rather than randomgen names I did research and found actual satyr characters from Greek and Roman myth. The names that ended in -us, I’ll assign to the fauns. I didn’t find any of Lewis’s names in there , so I can guess he made them up himself.
As for the satyrs, Staggle was the only one mentioned by name, and that was in The Last Battle where he is one of the Narnian beings collaborating with the Calormenes. In British slang, staggle means “the awkward exchange that occurs when two people who are walking towards each other move in the same direction to get out of each other’s way” and, since the other members of that group are Ginger the Cat, Slinkey the Fox, and Shift the Ape, we can deduce they were named such to broadcast their sneakiness or shifty nature in some way, which is appropriate. I know it seems like Ginger shouldn’t be part of the group, but Lewis makes his disdain for redheads known in several places in the Chronicles, and Ginger is indeed British slang for a redhead.
But, respectfully Mr. Lewis, I’m going to ignore Staggle as a possible name for a satyr, which, being a Greek creature, would have had a Greek-sounding name like a faun. So, I posit that satyrs have Greekish names that end in -os to differentiate them from fauns, with some names ending with -bacchos to remind the reader they are followers of Bacchus (note that Bacchus is the Roman name of the god; I know I am mixing Greek and Roman names here, but so did Lewis.) As for Staggle, let’s say it was his nickname and his actual name was Stagglios.
Faun and Satyrs
| Fauns
Astraeus Dromus Hybrisus Lycus Melosus Napaeus Oestrus Orthus Petraeus Pherus Pithus Poemus Pylanus Scirtus Simus Thiasus Tyrbus Valthus Zarus |
Satyrs
Babacchos Briacchos Dithyrambos Genmos Gorgoneios Hedymelos Hedyoinos Hypsiceros Iobacchos Lenobos Oreimachos Pelasgos Pherespondos Phlegros Promnos Telconaros Terponos Zacharos Zaubacchos |
Diana and Her Nymphs Surprised by Satyrs, by Peter Paul Rubens. The original is in The Prado, and you can zoom in on it, here!
Rather than randomgen dryad and nymph names, I looked up some lesser-known names from Greek myth. The dryad list fell short, so I stuffed it out with the names of nymphs whose class was not mentioned in the tale.
Dryads and Naiads
| Dryads
Araea Atlanteia Brettia Brisa Byblis Chryse Chrysopeleia Cirrha Clymene Dryope Erato Harmonia Idaea Karya Lampetia Laodice Melanippe Melia Morea Phaethusa Psalacantha Ptelea Pyronia Semestra Sosaea Syke Tithorea |
Naiads
Aganippe Arethusa Argiope Caliadne Chalcis Cleochareia Cleone Deino Euboea Eupheme Harpina Hyperia Liriope Maera Melaena Myrtoessa Neda Nomia Peirene Philia Philodice Polyxo Prosymna Psanis Strophia Synallaxis Zeuxippe |
