Name origins in 40K, Dark Angels especially

[crimsondave]

I find it interesting that so many names in 40K are modified or exact copies of names with Judeo-Christian origins.

 

I think every named character of the Dark Angels is named after either a demon, angel, or person with Judeo-Christian origin outside of the Lion himself who was named after a devout Catholic (though he was obviously picked for his poetry and not his religion.)  I wonder if there has ever been any interviews or articles about how they name the characters.  I swear I saw an interview a while back about this but I can’t find it.  I know many of the Blood Angels are too, though not all.  Maybe it’s because they are both * Angels?  Abaddon is a demon name too though and I’m sure there are others.  Idk.  This is probably mind numbingly boring to most people but I find it interesting.

[Karhedron]

Blood Angels are mainly named after Renaissance artists and thinkers. Space Wolves are a mix of Norse-ish sounding names. UMs are Greco-Romano. Basically GW does with names what it does with army designs. It finds a theme and just leans into it.

 

Some names are just straight in-jokes. Angron was supposedly named after a gentleman nick-named "Angry Ron", a local drunk who used to frequent the same pub as some of the early developers. Ghazkulls surname "Mag Uruk Thraka" is allegedly based on Margaret Thatcher. His destruction of the industrial hive world of Armageddon mirrors what Thatcher did economically to the mining and industrial areas around Nottingham during and after the Miners' strike in the mid 80s. GW have since denied this but I think there is a grain of truth in it that they cannot admit now as a multi-million pound international company.

[AutumnEffect]

Something to keep in mind is that the two primary human languages used in 40k, Low and High Gothic, are not actually English and Latin. 

It's quite likely that these angelic names are used as a stand-in to represent some esoteric names used by the relevant cultures, but which wouldn't have any meaning to us. The angelic names could be interpreted as an approximate translation used for the benefit of the reader.

For example; in the Lord of the Rings novels, English is used as a stand-in for the common tongue of Westron.
The name of Frodo Baggins in Westron would be Maura Labingi.
Samwise "Sam" Gamgee's name would actually be Banazîr "Ban" Galbasi.

However, these names don't impart the rustic feel of the characters that Tolkein wanted, so the names were 'translated' to english.

I think it's quite likely a similar phenomenon is at work with a lot of Warhammer 40k names.

TLDR: They have those names because they have meaning and theme to us the readers, but they could be completely different names 'in universe'.

Edited November 30, 2023 by AutumnEffect

[crimsondave]

2 hours ago, AutumnEffect said:

Something to keep in mind is that the two primary human languages used in 40k, Low and High Gothic, are not actually English and Latin. 

It's quite likely that these angelic names are used as a stand-in to represent some esoteric names used by the relevant cultures, but which wouldn't have any meaning to us. The angelic names could be interpreted as an approximate translation used for the benefit of the reader.

For example; in the Lord of the Rings novels, English is used as a stand-in for the common tongue of Westron.
The name of Frodo Baggins in Westron would be Maura Labingi.
Samwise "Sam" Gamgee's name would actually be Banazîr "Ban" Galbasi.

However, these names don't impart the rustic feel of the characters that Tolkein wanted, so the names were 'translated' to english.

I think it's quite likely a similar phenomenon is at work with a lot of Warhammer 40k names.

TLDR: They have those names because they have meaning and theme to us the readers, but they could be completely different names 'in universe'.

 

Yes, I would agree totally.  We know Tolkien did this as he has spoken about it.  Also, as there appears to be no pattern of whether the Dark Angels characters are named after angels or demons and have nothing to do with the roles the religious characters are associated with, I would speculate whoever named them just liked the tone the names set.

 

Kind of random but the Ultramarine character Uriel Ventris is interesting.  Uriel is the Archangel associated with repentance/salvation.  Ventris is Latin for "abdomen."  There is also the English scholar and architect Michael Ventris and English politician Peyton Ventris.  Uriel was obviously on purpose, but I wonder if there was a specific reason they went with Ventris or if they just thought it sounded good and went with it.

 

3 hours ago, Karhedron said:

Blood Angels are mainly named after Renaissance artists and thinkers. Space Wolves are a mix of Norse-ish sounding names. UMs are Greco-Romano. Basically GW does with names what it does with army designs. It finds a theme and just leans into it.

 

Some names are just straight in-jokes. Angron was supposedly named after a gentleman nick-named "Angry Ron", a local drunk who used to frequent the same pub as some of the early developers. Ghazkulls surname "Mag Uruk Thraka" is allegedly based on Margaret Thatcher. His destruction of the industrial hive world of Armageddon mirrors what Thatcher did economically to the mining and industrial areas around Nottingham during and after the Miners' strike in the mid 80s. GW have since denied this but I think there is a grain of truth in it that they cannot admit now as a multi-million pound international company.

 

I have called Angron "Angry Ron" for as long as I can remember and never knew that an actual Angry Ron existed.  That's awesome.  I didn't know the connection with Ghaz and Thatcher either.  That's pretty funny.  I find it hard to believe that was a coincidence.

Edited November 30, 2023 by crimsondave
Typo

[Gamiel]

4 hours ago, Karhedron said:

Space Wolves are a mix of Norse-ish sounding names.

Wolf Lords Krom, Kruger, Mecklin, Bran, and Ogvai want words with thee. There is also the Great Wolf Logan.

[Gamiel]

4 hours ago, Karhedron said:

Ghazkulls surname "Mag Uruk Thraka" is allegedly based on Margaret Thatcher. His destruction of the industrial hive world of Armageddon mirrors what Thatcher did economically to the mining and industrial areas around Nottingham during and after the Miners' strike in the mid 80s. GW have since denied this but I think there is a grain of truth in it that they cannot admit now as a multi-million pound international company.

It was not GW who said it but Andy Chambers personally.

[jaxom]

7 hours ago, crimsondave said:

are named after angels or demons

To quote the meme, "Yes." Gustav Davidson wrote the seminal A Dictionary of Angels and one thing he stresses is that except for a very few gnostic sources, the idea of "devils" or "demons" distinct from aaaaaand I just realised the pedantics don't matter, just the GW writer's viewpoint. So yeah, Dark Angels are just "vaguely Hebrew or Aramaic", Blood Angels get "vaguely Greek or Arabic", and Chaos gets "recognizably bad." For example, Abaddon is Samael is Apollyon.

[LSM]

10 hours ago, Gamiel said:

It was not GW who said it but Andy Chambers personally.

 

Yeah, as fun as the Margaret Thatcher thing is, Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka is apparently just pseudo-Black Speech* for ~Metalskull Big Orc Boss.

 

*(ie one of Tolkien's LotR languages)

[Lexington]

Yeah, I’ve personally seen both Andy Chambers and Gav Thorpe make FB posts explaining that, no, it was not a Thatcher gag. Always seemed a bit “off” to me, didn’t fit in with how GW’s humor went, even during the fairly cheeseball Stillman era.

[Marshal Rohr]

It’s best not to dig too far into why things are named thusly. Your pattern recognition will start giving you the wrong ideas and soon you’ll be posting on Reddit about if the Emperor is actually Jesus and David Bowie. 

[jaxom]

12 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

It’s best not to dig too far into why things are named thusly. Your pattern recognition will start giving you the wrong ideas and soon you’ll be posting on Reddit about if the Emperor is actually Jesus and David Bowie. 

[chapter master 454]

Take a loaf of Latin, a good helping from the various cold meats of various countries, a dash of fudge and blend vigourously until angels with bare skulls start chanting latin songs. Leave out until a little bit of mold settles and its ready.

 

I think I missed a few ingredients but we'll just call it "home-made" ok.

[Marshal Rohr]

4 hours ago, jaxom said:

The Star Child must grow into a Star Man! He is there! Waiting in the Sky!

[roryokane]

They take their references from all over.
Caliban and Prospero are obviously references to The Tempest by Shakespeare, for example. 

Also, does anyone remember the bona fide Kruellagh?
 https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Kruellagh

But most are simply thematically derived, Greco-Romans in Space usually get Greco-Roman names, and so on, as everyone has said above.

[DukeLeto69]

On 12/1/2023 at 4:02 AM, Marshal Rohr said:

It’s best not to dig too far into why things are named thusly. Your pattern recognition will start giving you the wrong ideas and soon you’ll be posting on Reddit about if the Emperor is actually Jesus and David Bowie. 

Wait...what? Are you saying the big E isn’t Jesus Bowie!!!!!!

[Xenith]

One not picked up on is the Grey Knight - Game of Thrones names - it's clear what Mat Ward as reading when he wrote the book!

 

Khaldor Draigo - Khal Drogo

Anval Thawn - Alliser Thorne

Garran Crowe - The Garrison of Crows, permanent watchers over evil

Vorth Mordrak - I can't figure this one out. 

[Closet Skeleton]

On 11/30/2023 at 9:41 PM, jaxom said:

To quote the meme, "Yes." Gustav Davidson wrote the seminal A Dictionary of Angels and one thing he stresses is that except for a very few gnostic sources, the idea of "devils" or "demons" distinct from aaaaaand I just realised the pedantics don't matter, just the GW writer's viewpoint. So yeah, Dark Angels are just "vaguely Hebrew or Aramaic", Blood Angels get "vaguely Greek or Arabic", and Chaos gets "recognizably bad." For example, Abaddon is Samael is Apollyon.

I'm not familiar with Gustav Davidson but a poet writing in the 60s is not the best source for ancient religions. Especially not with a pre-1990s use of the word 'gnostic' which is among the top five the most controversial words in religious studies.

 

Demons and angels are distinct categories. Not always the same distinction, that definitely varies a lot and sure placing individual figures or individual uses of names is a mess but the categories have a very long history and are not 'amateur misconceptions'.

 

Samael is not Apollyon. Samael is a name that's used for a variety of figures to such a degree that no 'true' Samael exists as a specific concept while Abaddon and Apollyon are direct translations that both originate from the same passage in the Book of Revelation but also get used basically at random for whatever various writers have wanted throughout history.

 

Dark Angels actually prioritise demonic/fallen angel names not use random Judeo-Christian ones.

 

Azrael - Angel of Death, sometimes an angel, sometimes treated as equivilant to Azazel who is always evil and sometimes a fallen angel.

Belial - 'Lord of Filth'/'The Worthless One'. One of only three demons mentioned by name in the canonical Gospels (or the only one since 'Legion' is a descriptor for a non-individual and 'Satan' is a job title).

Asmodai - clearly derived from "Asmodeus" of unknown meaning, possibly 'demon of wrath' in Persian, one of the few demons mentioned by name in the deutercanon and a major evil figure in Jewish folklore and mysticism.

Ezekiel - The only real outlier in the original Dark Angels cast. Ezekiel is the name of a Biblical prophet and an obscure non-fallen angel. Also a female fallen angel in the Video game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron but I have no idea where they got that from because its not in the main sources that game uses.

Gideon - Not an angel but got replaced by Sammael so clearly someone wasn't impressed by the name choice.

Sammael - 'Venom of God', sometimes a fallen angel always an evil demon.

Bethor - An Olympian Spirit from Renaissance Grimoire magic but those are basically just an idiosyncratic substitution for what are normally demons in that kind of magic (and aren't treated as that evil when they're explicitly called demons anyway). Also not really high ranked but was on the original special characters list.

Sapphon - This is a sacred mountain in Canaanite but its associated with Baal which is always interpreted demonically in a Abrahamic context.

 

Once you get into the lower ranks and latter sources the names get a bit less focused but with the core characters they're all 'dark angels' with the exception of Ezekiel. They're also all pretty basic choices except for Bethor and Sapphon so except for Ezekiel they're probably meant to give fallen angel or evil vibes.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Closet Skeleton

[jaxom]

5 hours ago, Closet Skeleton said:

'm not familiar with Gustav Davidson but a poet writing in the 60s is not the best source for ancient religions. Especially not with a pre-1990s use of the word 'gnostic' which is among the top five the most controversial words in religious studies.

Highly recommend,  it's the most comprehensive reference collection of angelolgy out there. He was a research bibliographer at the US Library of Congress;  specifically for children's literature, but he knew how to do research. Davidson started collecting angel names and lore as a hobby, but quickly gained a reputation as a content-knowledge expert in the field. He realized the whole field of angelology was a mess because anyone in or adjacent to the Judeo-Christian-Islam axis could (and had!) contributed new angels, conflated existing angels with other angels or pagan gods, or placed them in different places in the hierarchy. Later scholars, trying to circle the square, would then make further additions, subtractions, and conflations. So Davidson ended up doing a deep dive on literature among the Judeo-Christian-Islam sects (and yes, that includes the Gnostic, Apocryphal, Kabbalic, Medieval mysticism, Renaissance mysticism, etc etc) and identify -where he could- the first use of different names, appellations, roles, and titles. He then connected what he found to other myths and religions. For example:

Quote

Ba-En-Kekon (Bainkhookh)-an aeon-angel mentioned in Pistis Sophia gnosticism and referred to as "the soul of darkness." He derives from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

For Abaddon, the first mention of an Angel of the Pit was the Book of Revelation (9:11) explicitly saying his name was Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek. Davidson connects it to the older "sheols of Abaddon" from the Thanksgiving Scroll (of Deadsea Scroll fame) where it is a place ("the rivers/torrents of Belial flow/burst into Abaddon"). The suggestion being that Job and Thanksgiving Scroll are describing two different things (the angel or incarnation of destruction and the afterlife of the destroyed), and John of Patmos conflated the two; where the incarnation guards the location. Then in 1825, the Dictionairre Infernal conflates Abaddon (guardian of the Pit) with Samael/Satan (prisoner of the Pit).

 

Edit: I'm avoiding the specific religious aspects due to board rules, but one shouldn't forget the "el" and "al" endings are Hebrew in nature, not demonic unless one subscribes to specific religions. The reason Ezekiel seems like an outlier is that his trip through the Heavens is one of the older sources of celestial beings (not strictly angels, though the two get conflated later) and Ezekiel ends up as one of their number, residing in the celestial realm (not in the 'normal' afterlives).

Edited December 6, 2023 by jaxom

[Helias_Tancred]

Judeo, Islamic, and Christian angel and demons named were definitely  pilfered, borrowed, and looted. 

 

Uriel Ventris. Uriel being a classic Angel name for example. 

 

No copy rights on any of them ;) lol. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Eilio Tiberius