The Allegorical Cryptonyms of The Hallmarked Man, Part Three

Ten More Cratylic Character Names and Best Guesses about their Embedded Meanings

This is the third in a three part series of posts in which I attempt to tease out the meanings of the names chosen by Rowling-Galbraith for characters in The Hallmarked Man. The hardest part of writing these posts has been narrowing down the list of names to be explored; there are well over one hundred and thirty new names of note in Strike 8 and the author makes a point of highlighting their importance both by making the meaning of names a pivotal clue in solving the novel’s core mystery and by giving characters names that are easily confused with one another or multiple names. Parts one and two in this series can be found here and here; my conversations with Nick Jeffery about those posts are here and here. If there are names I have not deciphered about which you’d like an interpretation, please tell me about it in the comments boxes below (or offer your interpretation there!).

In my second post on Hallmarked Man’s cryptonyms, I pledged to discuss the meaning of ‘Jim Todd,’ a.k.a. Jim Philpott and Todd Jameson. Ed Shardlow beat me to it, and, frankly, I can only hope I would have figured out the embedded story that Ed uncovered. For the importance of the name of the “egg-shaped” man stuck riding in circles on the Tube in relation to Robin’s ectopic pregnancy and struggles with her status as a woman and as a detective in Strike 8, see Ed’s post on the subject and our conversation with him. I think it is the most important name in a book crowded with new names and an important marker with respect to Rowling’s story-within-a-story artistry.

Ed having taken my former #1 name for this list, I will replace it with a name I’d never encountered, one used for a baby whose existence and paternity is problematic, at best.

1. Ottolie Watkins (Honbold? Strike?)

Ottolie is the daughter of Belinda ‘Bijou’ Watkins, a brash barrister who seems determined to advance her social standing via winning a husband with a Pregnancy Trap. Readers only meet Ottolie once and that briefly when Strike arranges to meet with Bijou in the Strand Hotel on the sly for a pregnancy test to prove he is not the baby’s father (at story’s end, Bijou reports sans shared documentation that Strike is off the hook in this regard).

I confess to complete ignorance with respect to the name ‘Ottolie,’ never having met a person with that name or encountered a character in a work of fiction bearing that nominal burden. Which just tells you I need to get out more. Its anglicized version ‘Ottilie’ is very popular in the UK and becoming so in the US. Per wikipedia:

Ottilie continued to gradually increase in use among socially influential British families during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Between 2010 and 2018, it was among the top 50 names most often given to newborn girls whose parents published a birth announcement in The Daily Telegraph and was the most popular name for girls for the first time in 2019. Ottilie has remained a popular name for girls in subsequent years among readers who published a birth announcement in the British newspaper. One study found that Ottilie was the second most popular name chosen by billionaires for their daughters. The name has also increased in overall popularity in England and Wales since 2010. It has ranked among the top 500 names for girls in those countries since 2015 and among the top 100 names for girls since 2022.

‘Ottilie' is #71 on the list of most common names for girls in the UK and I’d never seen it before Strike 8. It’s meaning historically and etymologically is “wealth” or “prosperity,” more specifically, “prosperous in battle,’ a feminine variant of ‘Otto.’ I know that a girl with that name growing up in the schools I went to would have been battle-tested or at least teased to the point of torment, something akin to the Boy Named Sue.

I think, though, that rather than skill in conflict, the name is a marker of the mother’s ambitions to become wealthy as the wife of Andrew Honbold, QC, or, failing that, notoriously name worthy as Mrs Cormoran Strike.

How about the mother’s names, given and adopted? ‘Belinda’ means “beautiful” or “a bright serpent,” gotta love the latter given her snake in the grass quality, ‘Bijou’ is an “intricate jewel piece” worn as a marker of marital and social status, and ‘Watkins’ is a diminutive per Reaney & Wilson’s Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames, Rowling’s name reference book, of ‘Walter,’ “mighty army” (p 474).

And ‘Honbold,’ the target daddy’s surname? It’s not in Reaney & Wilson, but ‘Hon’ in surnames is from the Old German ‘Hun’ for either “giant” or “bear cub,” and ‘bold',’ at least as seen in hortatory virtue names of England’s Puritan past like ‘Godbold’ means zealous or bold. Forgive me for thinking it’s a play on the abbreviation for ‘the Honourable’ honorific and ‘bold’ as in ‘arrogant, brash.’

Ottolie, then, is well-named. The character’s mother is a social climber with few scruples and the name resonates with class pretension and a touch of nouveau riche over-reach. A favorite of those who publish birth announcements in papers of record and of billionaires, the little girl has been positioned by her mother (by the author) for fitting in with the best people.

2. Calvin ‘Oz’ Osgood

The first thing to note about this name is that it is simultaneously a character’s name and a name that another character, the murderer and sex trafficker Ian Griffins, uses as his persona or mask. Griff goes as far as to wear a wig to look like Osgood (or just different than himself) and to create an online presence including an email address and social media postings as Osgood.

I confess to thinking this bizarre. The real Osgood is aware of the mirror site and his ‘Oz’ online doppelganger but seems to do nothing beyond express exasperation that another person is representing himself as the real Calvin in cyber space. In this gap, Ian Griffins successfully uses Osgood’s reality as a producer-promoter to engage and seduce young women, who would find that Osgood’s online presence when checking up on their new ‘friend.’

I am clueless about this sort of thing but a lot hangs on it in terms of The Hallmarked Man crimes and the Agency’s struggle to figure out whodunnit.

• If the Met had done their job properly and gotten the Osgood emails, supposedly deleted, soon after the murder in the silver shop vault, the case is broken by tracking down the Oz impersonator.

• If the real Calvin Osgood tracks down his online doppelganger and exposes him as a fraud, perhaps even involving the police, maybe Griff is only forced to find another virtual identity, but maybe Sofia Medina’s life is saved and maybe the police figure out the evil in Ironbridge.

Is Rowling-Galbraith embedding a message here about our responsibility to take online fraud more seriously than does the real Osgood? Or is it more a commentary about the reality of online personas in general in comparison with the person named? We all present a self-flattering image of ourselves in social media and in internet postings; is the message here in this use of names to conceal a killer that we shouldn’t believe how people present themselves in virtual spaces?

On to the name.

‘Calvin’ to most people today, I suspect, is most well known as a newspaper cartoon strip character, the beloved young boy of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes. It’s originally, however, a surname, one that becomes popular as a given name among Protestants as homage to the 16th century French reform theologian John Calvin.

It would be very hard to overstate the depth and breadth of Calvin’s influence on the history of Europe and Western civilization; his writing is the touchstone of the Protestant Reformation which is the engine that broke down the fortress such as it was of Catholic Europe and birthed modernity.

It would be at least as hard to overstate the irony of naming a music producer ‘Calvin,’ given the theologian’s severe piety and ideas of predestination, or that the novel’s murderer would think that name was a good cover.

Of course Griffin does not go by ‘Calvin’ or ‘Osgood,’ but by ‘Oz,’ the name of Baum’s fictional world that Dorothy visits with her dog Toto. In that, it seems, Rowling is telling us via Griff that this was at least a signal to his marks that he wasn’t who he said he was online?

As for ‘Osgood’ the surname, Reaney & Wilson are of little help (344) simply reporting that that the -good aspect of it derives from both -gold and -god. The Wisdom Library online, though, suggests it is something of a puritan virtue name:

The name Osgood is of Old English origin, derived from the elements "ōs" meaning "god" or "divine" and "gōd" meaning "good." Therefore, the name Osgood essentially translates to "divinely good" or "god-good." It was a relatively common Anglo-Saxon name, reflecting the importance of both religious belief and positive attributes in naming practices. Variations and related names include Osgoode and the shortened form, Oz.

Again, I think we’re meant to read this name as simultaneously a deep dish of irony and of misdirection. What better cover for a murderer and sex fiend than the name of a pious theologian bible-fundamentalist tied to a Roundhead name celebrating one’s closeness to God?

3. Sofia Medina

Sofia Medina is a Spanish college student funding her course with an Only Fans site. She is seduced by Ian Griffin posing as Calvin Osgood, she participates in the silver vault murder as an unwitting accomplice (primarily as a driver but also in erasing Tyler Powell’s identity beneath his William Wright mask), and is brutally murdered by Griff to cover his tracks. Robin connects the testimony of Powell’s flat mates about Sofia’s appearance at the apartment building the day of his murder with the clothing of the murdered girl.

The name? ‘Sophia’ is the Greek word for ‘wisdom,’ the knowledge much greater than the knowledge we have from our senses or our thinking. ‘Medina’ has no entry in the Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames because it isn’t English. Per Wikipedia:

Medina is a common Mediterranean toponymic surname of Spanish-Moorish and Sephardic Jewish origin.

The surname was derived from several cities and towns of Spain… The use of the term dates back to the Muslim rule of Al Andalus, Emirate of Sicily and the times of Islam in Malta (8th–15th century) and it originates from the Arabic word madīnah (مَدِيْنَة) which means “city” ultimately derived from Aramaic. Many families that came new to these places took it as a surname during the Reconquista. The surname was imported to the Spanish colonies by the conquistadores. Medina is a common surname among Moriscos and Conversos/Marranos too.

So we have a student making her way by selling her body online given a name that means either ‘Wisdom of the City’ or ‘Wisdom of the Moors.’ I don’t think Rowling-Galbraith was taking a dig at Muslims here which leaves a pointer to the topos of traditional bias for the country versus the city in terms of where real wisdom is to be found.

4. Gretchen Schiff

Sofia’s Austrian roommate Gretchen was also manipulated by Ian ‘Oz’ Griffin into a pornographic photo shoot. Her first name is a derivation of Margaret, the Greek word for ‘Pearl’ and a reference to Christ, the Pearl of Great Price. Pearls are natural symbols of the Light of the World because, as with gold and silver, they appear to be solid light.

‘Schiff’ per the Wisdom Library simply means ‘Ship:’

The surname Schiff is of German origin, derived from the Middle High German word "schif," meaning "ship." As such, it originated as an occupational name for a shipbuilder, ship owner, boatman, or someone who lived near a prominent ship. It may also have been a topographic name for someone living near a landmark resembling a ship. Alternatively, in some instances, it may have been a Jewish (Ashkenazic) surname, an ornamental name from the German word for "ship," or an adoption of the German surname. Associated names include Schiffer, Schiffman, and Shipman.

Schiff is more often than not a Jewish name which makes the Sofia-Gretchen pairing as roommates a mirroring of sorts; both have symbolic first names and religious marker surnames. That both women with such wisdom resonant names fall prey to a satanic manipulator may be meaningful.

5. Sapphire Neagle

Once again, Reaney & Wilson gives us nothing for ‘Neagle’ but there are interesting meanings to be found online. From a DNA Origins Analysis site (!):

The last name Neagle is of Irish or Scottish origin, and it is derived from the Gaelic name MacFhiodhbhuidhe, which translates to “son of the dark or swarthy leader”. It is believed to have originally been used as a nickname for people with dark hair, which is a common physical trait for many Irish people.

That seems a wild stretch to me but what do I know about Gaelic derivations? Nada. It is also potentially derived from the name ‘Neil,’ a name close to Rowling’s heart, which became ‘Nigellus’ by faulty Latinization (‘Neil’ is Scottish for ‘Champion’ a la ‘Nicholas,’ the ‘victorious champion of the people,’ and ‘Nigellus’ is from ‘Niger,’ the Latin word for ‘black’).

And ‘Sapphire’ is the gemstone, like the pearl another symbol of hard light. As such, she is the buried treasure, the hidden jewel that Strike finds in Griffin’s basement prison, the light in the darkness that the champion raises from the dead, if you will, by his heroic blood sacrifice. Tyler Powell had been trying to do the same for Chloe-Jolanda but was murdered ritually underground in a silver vault for his efforts. Strike acts as Powell’s avenger in the finale.

There’s another Tyler-Sapphire connection.

Strike assumed that the number 32, which was picked out in red beads on the sash on the corpse, referred to one of the masonic degrees, and quickly discovered that he was right. Achieving degree thirty-two gave a Freemason the rank of Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, was symbolised by wavy swords and a Teutonic cross bearing an eagle that also appeared on the sash, and was superseded in status only by the highest degree of all, Sovereign Grand Inspector-General. (400)

Tyler is dressed as a Masonic Christian knight in mockery by Ian Griffin with an eagle sash laid over his mutilated corpse. Sapphire wears her eagle embedded in her last name.

6. Susan Iverson

‘Susan’ is from the Hebrew word for Lotus flower or Lily, even white rose. Like ‘Pearl’ via Margaret-Gretchen, these white flowers are alchemical markers for the albedo or white stage of purification. Rowling loves to peg female characters with the names of flowers; if there is a Golden Thread of Cratylic Names in her work it is the strand connecting Lily Potter and Susan Iverson (and Chloe/Jolanda).

‘Iverson,’ too, is linked with ‘Pearl,’ because per Reaney & Wilson (250) it means ‘Ivor’s son.’ Beyond being startled by ‘Ivor,’ the name of Tyler Powell’s deadbeat adopted father in Florida (making the brutalized hero of the novel another ‘Iverson’), I thought immediately of ‘ivory,’ another white and semi-luminescent treasured excrescence.

That thinking, alas, is not what ‘Ivor’ means here Reaney & Wilson say ‘Ivory’ is just an affectionate diminutive for ‘Ivor.’ ‘Ivor’ means “archer, bow warrior” a la “Longcaster:”

Ivor is an English masculine given name derived either directly from Norse Ívarr, or through Welsh (which spells it Ifor) or Irish and Scottish Gaelic (which spell it Íomhar), all of which likely derive it also from the original Norse form. The Norse name is derived from the Old Norse elements ýr (yew, bow) and herr (warrior, army): hence, 'archer, bow warrior'. It is possible the old Norse name Ívarr comes from the Celtic root and may be related to the Celtic root of -iv which is found in St. Ives for example, itself possibly referring to yew.

Another ‘False Cupid’ reference akin to Valentine Longcaster? I think that is a good bet, especially as daddy Ivor is anything but a sacrificially and selflessly loving father as adopted parents are supposed to be (and which his son Tyler promised to be to Jolanda’s child).

Susan Iverson, one of the Metropolitan Police force agents in charge of the Silver Vault murder investigation, has become Wardle’s lover at the end of Hallmarked Man. She knows more about Murphy’s secret doings than any other character in the series so I suspect Wardle, a loving dad, will be learning some of what off-screen Murphy was up to in Running Grave and Hallmarked Man in pillow-talk with Lily Bow-Warrior.

7. Kim Cochran

Neither of these names are especially suggestive as pointers to who or what this character is meant to represent. ‘Kim’ is a unisex name derived from the surnames Kimberly or Kimball and ‘Cochrane’ is a place-surname alluding to a town in Renfrewshire (R&W, 102). ‘Kim,’ of course, is the name of Rudyard Kipling’s greatest novel, perhaps the best boy’s coming of age novel outside of Great Expectations, Kidnapped, or the Harry Potter novels; if it’s a bit of literary allusion or hat-tip to Kipling, though, it’s a stretch for Kim Cochran outside of her possibly being a secret agent.

‘Kim’ in street language and online slang is a reference to the type of woman who wants to be like Kim Kardashian. This meaning I think is a match with the Agency detective formerly of the Met who uses her feminine wiles to win a place in Strike’s bed probably for a honey trap payoff of some kind.

And ‘Cochran’? I think it is a play on the word ‘cock’ as in ‘penis’ and someone in pursuit of ‘getting some.’ Read in this light, ‘kim’ could be read as somewhat assonant with ‘cum.’ Rather Nabokovian.

Vulgar, I know, but I think we’re meant to read Kim as the anti-Robin. Think of Robin’s thoughts after Todd Jameson escapes from her on the Tube; she worries that the former Met policewoman and a woman trying to bed Strike will ridicule her boss as a poor detective and lesser woman. Reading Cochran’s name as a sexual-tag is my best bet for the meaning Rowling-Galbraith hopes we’ll take away.

Put a marker down, though, on Cymberline, a neglected Shakespeare play (the one most likely not to be recognized as a Shakespeare play?), less as a source for the name ‘Kim’ (though it is that, just not so much for this Rowling character), than for the allegorical drama playing out in Hallmarked Man.

8. Trevik Nancarrow

‘Trevik’ means ‘from the big farm or estate’ and ‘Nancarrow’ is an old Cornish clan name meaning “the valley of the deer.” One of the candidates for ‘Last Known Speaker of the Cornish Language’ is a John Nancarrow. Rowling-Galbraith has given Uncle Ted’s father and Strike’s grandfather an archaic name speaking of the feudal past in Cornwall.

That Trevik chose to give his daughter the name Peggy, like ‘Gretchen’ a derivation of ‘Margaret’ the Pearl, speaks to his connection with a pre-modern past; her decision to drop that first name to become ‘Leda,’ the mythological consort of Zeus and mother of heroes and beautiful women, declares her choosing to connect with the pre-Christian past.

It’s the feel of ‘Trevik Nancarrow’ that strikes me more than its meaning as such. The name resonates with depth, something like the echo you hear when shouting down a well, that suggests a person of legend or at least far removed from the mundane and secular present. Trevik seems to have been something of an ogre, certainly feared and despised by his son and by the daughter born many years later than his heir; I’m looking forward to learning more about him and about Leda’s out-of-time conception and separation from her daddy in the next two books.

9. Carmen, Dirk, and Barnaby Ellacott

It’s about time that we talked about the Ellacotts, right? From the Surname Database:

This most interesting surname, prominent in Devon, Cornwall, and Wiltshire, is of Anglo-Saxon and Cornish origin. Firstly, it may be of Anglo-Saxon origin, as a variant of Elcot, a locational name from places so called in Berkshire and Wiltshire. This placename is composed of the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name "Ella", a short form of various compound names with the first element "aelf", elf, and the Olde English "cot, cote", a cottage, shelter for animals. The name is also of Cornish origin, where it derives from some lost or unidentified place called Ellacott, Ellicoat or Elcoat. The placename is composed of the Cornish personal name "Elli", probably from the Welsh (Celtic) personal name "Elisedd", a derivative of "elus", kindly, benevolent, and the Olde English "cot, cote", as above.

A treat, that is. Robin’s family name is Cornish and means a “welcoming shelter for animals.” What a great name for the daughter of a sheep scientist and the partner of a Western Man.

We have three new Ellacotts in Hallmarked Man, one by marriage and two by birth.

‘Carmen’ is Robin’s new sister-in-law or at least she is the mother of Robin’s latest nephew, Dirk. Carmen is a free-spirit, to put it mildly, and her relationship with Robin’s middle brother Martin is volatile. Are we meant to think of Carmen and Jose the Quarreling Couple of Bizet’s opera? I have to think so.

That the two name their preemie newborn ‘Dirk’ suggests this is the case beyond their arguing and his always coming up short in their exchanges. The name, after all, means “long straight bladed dagger,” and, while that could mean the boy whose name is “little sword” is the son of Excalibur the Dumpster Entrepreneur as Martin suspects, a dirk is the weapon Jose deploys to kill Carmen at the end of the opera.

‘Barnaby’ is the full-term baby born to Robin’s older and favorite brother Stephen and his wife the veterinarian. It’s a curious name on at least two counts.

One is the richness of its allusions to a British past. ‘Barnabas’ is the name of an almost forgotten Apostle of Christ (cf., Acts 14:14), the meaning of which name is a matter of no little discussion; I’ll go with “Son of Consolation.” As a given name, it was most popular in the UK in the 17th Century, the Civil War era of peak Puritanism, and seems to have been reborn in Nigeria and west Africa today. Like ‘Trevik,’ ‘Barnaby’ seems a blast from the past and a bit of a head-scratcher for the Ellacotts.

Perhaps, though, they are Dickens readers? A love for Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty, like familiarity with Martin Chuzzlewit (Mark Tapley’s jollity makes that a Granger family favorite), is the mark of a real Dickens re-reader. There is a religiously inspired riot near Westminster in that novel that Rowling-Galbraith may be pointing to vis a vis the Islamicist terrorist attack in Hallmarked Man.

I think that less likely than it being an out-there echoing of an internal story point. Shanker tells Strike early on in the detective’s search for the identity of the Ramsey silver vault body that Knowles’ body was “Gawn to Barnaby’s” (369). It takes Strike almost another seventy chapters to stumble upon Brian Judge’s Scrap as Marco Ricci just happens to enter it — in another one of Rowling’s signature not-quite-credible coincidences (cue Ghost of Tyler Powell prodding?) — and to make the rhyming slang connection with Barnaby Rudge (649).

In between the Shanker tip and the scrap yard epiphany, Robin gets the news of her nephew’s birth and a picture twice likened to a sumo wrestler in size and visage. In conversation with Murphy, she connects the two:

Yes,’ said Robin.

‘Have you found out what Barnaby’s is? Or who it is?’

‘No,’ said Robin, reminded yet again that she still hadn’t bought her new nephews presents. (547)

In a book in which names play such an important part, perhaps the largest of Ellacott babies is given the name ‘Barnaby’ just to keep this Shanker allusion current in our short term memory as it does with Robin.

10. Ralph Lawrence/ John Auclair

‘Lawrence’ is a Granger family name; it’s the middle name of my great-grandfather, my grandfather, and father as well as my older brother’s given name. So I know what it means. It’s originally Lorence. The historical meaning is simply ‘from Laurentius,’ a city outside of Rome.

The city has its name, however, from the laurel tree, so the name came to mean ‘he who wears the laurel wreath,’ the victor or champion.’

It becomes a Christian name, consequently, in Italian (Lorenzo) as a synonym for Christ the Victor, Christus Victor, a “victory [via ransom or sacrifice] over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil.” The more common English equivalents for ‘Lorence’ are ‘Victoria’ and ‘Nicole.’

But there’s more! The literal meaning of Lorence from the French is similarly ‘rich,’ in that ‘rich’ means simultaneously ‘full of meaning’ and ‘solid gold valuable.’

L’or in French means ‘Gold.’ -Ence as a suffix means “the state or quality of.” ‘Lorence’ from that etymology means ‘the Golden One.’

This as with ‘laurel-wreath-Victor’ is another dominical name in that Christ is the “true light.” Gold among traditional people is considered solid light, the original metal and the destination of all other metals, hence the use of gold in wedding bands and the color of a nimbus or halo. ‘Christos’ in Greek is resonant with ‘Chryses’ the Greek word for gold.

There are more than 100 names that derive from ‘gold’ because of this association. Fun equivalents A to Z from around the world include Aurelia (Auriel, Ariel), Cressida, Dior (Dory), Eurwen (Arwen), Flavia, Gilda, Hema, Jin (Jinhua), Kim (!), Laurelin, Melora, Oralie (Orabel, Orel), Paziah, Zareen (Zareza).

The most obvious English one is derived from Yiddish: ‘Goldie.’ Popular names that come from ‘light’ and its association with “the light that comes into the world in every man” include Nora, Clara, and Lucy.

Ralph Lawrence? ‘Ralph’ has the slang meaning of ‘to vomit’ but etymologically its “Wolf-Counsel,” a high-powered Germanic moniker. I think the mysterious MI6 character Rowling introduces in Hallmarked Man is going to play a large role in the high stakes alchemical drama of the last two books, all of which lead to a Golden One.

I want to sneak John Auclair in here because his was the cryptonym in Hallmarked Man that made me laugh out loud. ‘John’ of course I know for the same reason I know ‘Lawrence;’ it means “God is gracious” or “God is merciful.” The meaningful piece of the “silver collector” and “advertising millionaire” name, though, is in the surname.

‘AU’ is the periodic table of the elements acronym for gold from the Latin au-reus. ‘Clair’ is from the French for ‘clear’ or ‘bright.’ As a noun it can mean “moonlight.” -Clair as a suffix in the surname ‘Auclair,’ then, means “clear gold,” which I think is Rowling the Cryptonominalist’s clever “silver.”

Alchemy and astrology are conjoined sacred sciences with planets and elements being paired. The most important of these pairings are gold with the sun and silver with the moon; gold is more highly valued than silver, from this view, not because of scarcity but because gold is the greater light, a better symbol of the Light of the World, and silver, as moonlight is to sunlight, only a reflection of that correspondence.

Rowling points to this relationship and meaning with ‘Au-clair’ at the start of the book, perhaps with an as playful and subtle tip of the hat to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island with her ‘John Silver.’

I’ll close this Cryptonyms series on that note! Please share your own interpretations in the comment boxes below or a list of ten more names you think are worth deciphering…