Names and Stuff

[hazelk]

Re-watching the Firefly episode Jaynestown and thinking about the thematic similarities between it and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance it suddenly strikes me that J-ayne is a contraction of J-(ohn W)-ayne. As well as being almost as girly a name as Marion.

Other names. Inara/Inanna, the goddess of love who descends to the underworld. Pretty literal. Book, now a man of the book but with hints of a previous non-biblical allegiance. Mal means bad as River points out but what kind of a hippy name is River from parents who called their first-born Simon? Parental name choices may often seem crazy but there’s method in their madness. This is like Dermot and Moon Unit.

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay…

The only chapter of Finnegan’s Wake I’ve ever felt I understood was the eighth with Anna Livia Plurabelle, the Riverness of Allwoman, being gossiped over by two washerwomen on the banks of the Liffey. Kitty Pryde – Willow – Fred. It seems Whedon’s Allwoman is a crazy teenage girl with superpowers and a genius IQ. For and in herself perhaps, River is well named.

Comments

[elisi]

You've read 'Finnegan's Wake'? I am beyond impressed! And I always assumed that 'River' was somehow linked to the whole Chinese thing - it's probably a very normal name in China?

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I’ve read Chapter 8. I tried starting it lots of times and lots of different ways (as the Buffybot would say). Now it sits at the end of the bookshelf waiting for retirement or when the kids leave home.

The Chinese thing sounds a good idea. Names change their associations so fast. Who’d have thought 20 years ago that Kevin and Kylie would become so middle class and common?

[ann1962]

OMG, I was going to quote that line this morning. Joyce was playing name games here too. He put his grandson's name in this first line.

riverrun, pa[st Eve an]d Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay…

Stephen was his grandson's name. Some researcher in the 60's noticed this and it is a lovely tribute to both his wife as Eve, and his grandson!

I haven't started reading this yet. Still thinking about it.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Oh that’s beautiful. Thanks! And Stephen Dedalus, did they name the grandson for the grandfather that way?

[ann1962]

James' son Georgio's reason's for this aren't spelled out clearly. According to Wikipedia, Stephen Daedalus was James Joyce's early pen name. St. Stephen was also the first Christian martyr something that would have attracted James. Stephen's Green being the place where James and friends hung out in college. This name kept coming back to Joyce in his life.

I am not certain why Georgio named his son Stephen other than to be noticed by his father. I think an attempt to become the son he always wanted to be, to be noticed by his father. His marriage to Stephen's mother caused much consternation in the family. She was older and a friend of Nora's. The friendship ended and was repaired after the birth of Stephen. Georgio was considered a gigolo by many for his lack of ambition. Joyce never raised his children to consider a career or a life other than Joyce's own. I think the naming of the grandson was an attempt to connect. And Stephen grew up to be very very protective of his grandfather's name and work.

[fishsanwitt]

I didn't know *any* of this! Thanks :)

[executrix.livejournal.com]

It's personal fanon, but I convinced myself that in fact River is officially named Rebecca; Grandma called her Rivkele and Little!Simon heard that as River and it stuck.

But I'm also convinced that Simon and River are twins who were thawed out at different times, a la Podkayne of Mars.

[ann1962]

Oh, I wondered about the twin thing too early on.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I really like the idea that Simon named her.

Not so sure about the twin thing but that's probably because these days it's hard to imagine they'd freeze actual babies rather than embryos. So they might have shared a fallopian tube but not a womb, would that be enough to count as twins more than siblings?

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I was figuring more that they shared a Petri dish and were frozen as embryos or perhaps even pre-embryos.

[yourlibrarian]

Clever you -- that never occured to me, but I'm sure you're right!