The Third Antichrist (65 page)

Dadul
(
Gavriloff
)
:
Dadul means to do something ‘ridiculous’, ‘crazy’ or ‘legendary’. Also someone who is quick with their hands.

Dakini
(
de Bale
)
:
Dakini stems from the Tibetan, and means ‘she who traverses the sky’ or ‘she who moves in space’ – a sky dancer or sky walker. The word generally implies a witch or a female demon who appears to a magician during certain rituals, often related to the dead. The Dakini is frequently shown as a young, naked, dancing figure, holding a skull cup filled with menstrual blood (the elixir of life) and a curved knife. She wears a garland of human skulls, and holds a trident staff against her shoulder. Her hair is wild and hangs down her back, and her face is contorted into a wrathful expression. She is prone to dancing on corpses to show her mastery over ego and ignorance.

Dearborn
(
Skip
)
:
Dearborn is Old English, and means the ‘place of the deer’. It is also a ‘four-wheeled carriage with curtained sides’. I derived the name Skip from a skep, or ‘beehive’, both names implying something held within something else – i.e. something hidden. A ‘whited sepulchre’ perhaps?

De Bale:
See
Bale

Dracul
(
Lupei
)
:
Dracul means ‘the devil’ in Romanian, but it can also mean ‘son of the dragon’. Lupei means a ‘wolf’. Both names were chosen specifically to indicate evil, or the possibility of evil. They also have revocations of Vlad
Ţ
epe
ş
, nicknamed Dracul or Dracula (the ‘impaler’), who was three-time Vovoide of Wallachia, and was renowned for impaling his enemies on stakes.

Flipo:
Flipo is a slang variant of Filipo, meaning a ‘friend of horses’. See
Lemelle

Gavril:
Gavril is a variation on the name Gabriel, meaning ‘God is my strength’ or ‘one who worships God’. Also ‘God’s able-bodied one’. The name is used ironically in the context of the book.

Hervé:
See
Milouins

Ixtab:
Ixtab, or ‘rope woman’, was the Mayan goddess of suicide – in particular, that by hanging, which was considered quite acceptable in Mayan culture. Ixtab was often depicted as a corpse with a rope around her neck, and was deemed a psychopomp (i.e. one who accompanied suicides to their final resting place).

Joris:
See
Calque

Karaev
(
Anatoly
)
:
The surname Karaev stems from the Turkic term meaning either ‘black’ or ‘dark’. It can also indicate a dirty or foul-tempered person. The Christian name Anatoly implies that the bearer is ‘from the east’.

Koine/Koiné:
Koiné comes from the Greek
koiné diálektos
, meaning common usage. Like
Sabir
, it was a Lingua Franca of the Eastern Mediterranean in Hellenistic and Roman times, and also the language linking Attic Greece to the Byzantine era.

Kol
(
Driver
)
:
Kol means ‘coal town’ – it also means ‘dark’ in Norwegian. I chose the name to imply someone who works for a living in a confined space.

Lamia
(
de Bale
)
:
Lamia was the daughter of Poseidon and a mistress of Zeus. Hera was so jealous of Lamia that she stole away her children and deformed their mother, giving her the upper body and breasts of a woman, while her lower body was transformed into that of a serpent. This hybrid version of Lamia then lured victims to her domain and devoured them in her grief – her name derives from the Greek word
laimos
, meaning ‘gullet’. In ancient Rome she was viewed as a bloodsucking witch. She was also Queen of Libya (even the personification of Libya), and alleged to have become a child-murdering daemon. Lamia was cursed with the inability to close her eyes so that she would always obsess over the image of her dead children – but Plutarch maintained that Lamia also had the gift of being able to pluck her eyes out and then replace them at will.

Lemelle
(
Philippe
)
:
Lemelle is a nickname for the ‘blackbird’, or of someone who lives near a medlar tree. It can also derive from the Latin,
lamina
, meaning a ‘thin plate of metal’, which transmogrified into the Old French
lemelle
, meaning the ‘blade of a knife’.

Lemma:
From the Latin
lemma
, meaning a theme, title or epigram – something taken as given. Also a proposition used to prove another proposition. It can also be the argument, theme, or subject of a written work, or the motto or legend below a picture. The name continues the theme of language and understanding which imbrues all three books.

Lenis:
Lenis means soft-voiced. Someone who articulates with little tension. It is the opposite of hard-voiced (i.e.
fortis
).

Luca:
Luca originally means someone who comes from Luciana in Italy. It also derives from the Latin,
lux
, meaning ‘light’, or ‘the bringer of light’. It is a variation on Lucius.

Macron
(
Paul
)
:
Macron comes from the Greek,
makrón
, meaning large, and describes the horizontal bar over a letter indicating that it is long (a long syllable). Paul, of course, means ‘small’ or ‘humble’, thus presenting something of a paradox in a two metre tall man.

Maja:
Maja is an Arabic girl’s name meaning ‘splendid’ – also ‘great’ and ‘mother’ in Greek. I chose the name because of Maja’s emphasis on motherhood and fatherhood as signs of a well-spent life.

Markovich
(
Cosmin
)
:
It means ‘gleaming’. It originally derives from the name Mark, meaning ‘dedicated to Mars, the god of war’. Cosmin means ‘in solidarity with life’ or ‘praise’. I chose the name to imply someone who wished to go on living.

Mastigou
(
Madame
)
:
Mastigou means to be ‘tympanized’ (i.e. to be stretched on the rack) or ‘tortured’. It can also mean ‘suffering’.

Mateos-Corrientes
(
Emiliano Graciano
)
:
Mateos means ‘offered up to God’, and Corriente is a‘very basic Spanish wine’, the implication being of someone of the lower order – the bottom of the barrel. Corriente also means a ‘current’, implying someone who is swept along by events. Emiliano means a ‘rival’ or ‘emulator’ – i.e. someone who copies. Graciano is meant paradoxically, and means ‘pleasing’.

Milouins
(
Hervé
)
:
A milouin is a ‘wild diving duck’ – a winter visitor to France. Hervé means ‘eager for battle’. Apposite, I felt.

Nawal
(
de Bale
)
:
Central American folk belief has it that the Nawal is a witch who is able to transform herself into an animal (most commonly a donkey, a turkey, or a dog). She can use her power for either good or evil, depending on her nature. In animism, each person will have a familiar animal to which their life force is linked – this is often the first animal that has wandered or flown into a notional circle drawn round the child’s cot. In Nahuatal (Aztec), the Nawal is always linked with harmful magic, and can transform herself, usually at night, into an owl, a bat, or a turkey, sucking blood from unsuspecting victims.

Nuelle:
Nuelle comes from the Hebrew, and means ‘a peaceful soul’.

Oni
(
de Bale
)
:
In Japanese folk belief the Oni were demons similar to the devils spoken of in medieval sorcery. They are usually depicted as hideous, gigantic, creatures with sharp claws, wild hair, and two long horns growing from their heads – sometimes with extra fingers and toes. Their skin is often red or blue, and they are frequently portrayed wearing tiger-skin loincloths and carrying iron clubs. They are considered virtually undefeatable. It was said that they could cause disease, disasters, and a plethora of other unpleasant things, should they be so inclined. Thus Oni.

Picaro
(
Jean
)
:
A Picaro was a ‘rogue’, a ‘bohemian’, or an ‘adventurer’ – also known as a picaroon. Also the main male character in a picaresque novel. Jean means ‘God is gracious’.

Radu:
Radu is of Slavonic origin, and means ‘the happy one’ or someone who is ‘joyful’. In Chinese it can mean ‘the leg of the dragon’. Chinese dragons are both potent and auspicious, unlike Western dragons.

Rocha
(
de Bale
)
:
Rocha means a ‘ewe’ or ‘something that is to be sacrificed’. In Portuguese it means a ‘rock’. See
Achor
.

Rudra
(
de Bale
)
:
Rudra is the Indian demon-God of storms, the hunt, and fierce winds – he is also associated with the forces of death. A skilful archer, he can bring disease with his arrows. His name can also be construed as the ‘roarer’, the ‘howler’, or the ‘terrible one’. He is sometimes linked with the god Shiva, and some know him as ‘the red one’ or ‘the wild beast’.

Sabir
(
Adam
)
:
Sabir comes from the Portuguese
sabir
, meaning to know. Sabir was also the earliest known pidgin, or Lingua Franca, based on a European language, and used from the time of the Crusades (eleventh to thirteenth centuries) until the early twentieth century, for communication between Europeans, Turks, Arabs and other Levantines in the Mediterranean. The name, in its Arabic form, can also mean ‘long-lasting’, ‘enduring’, ‘patient’, or ‘persevering’. In ancient Byzantium the Sabir people, who lived on the east coast of the Caspian Sea, were renowned as ‘reliable’. The name Adam, of course, can also mean ‘the earth’, or ‘red earth’, or simply ‘man’.

Samana:
Samana is a Creole language, used on southern plantations, and later, post-1820, in the Dominican Republic. It can also mean ‘heard’ or ‘asked of’ God. In Sanskrit, Samana is one of the five main pranas, and means ‘equality’.

Tepeu:
Tepeu comes from K’iche’ Maya, and means ‘sovereign’, or ‘one who conquers’ or ‘wins out’. In the Popol Vuh the name means ‘Sovereign Plumed Serpent’.

Valah:
Valah is of Romanian origin and means ‘one who is singled out’. The Valah were Latin speakers and traditional herders of sheep.

Vaulderie
(
de Bale
)
:
Vaulderie is a French expression used by members of the French Inquisition to describe the act of forming a Satanic pact. Named after the hermit Robinet de Vaulse, it became something of a familiar charge during the Middle Ages. It was also linked to the magical flying ointments allegedly used by the witches to ‘fly wherever they wished to go... the Devil carrying them to the place where they should hold their assembly.’

Yola:
From the Old English/ West Saxon
yald
, meaning ‘old’. The name was used for the first variant of English spoken in Ireland, circa the twelfth century, with the ‘old’ emphasis implying a separate evolution. It can also mean a ‘violet flower’. I used it to imply ancient heredity.

Zina
(
Samana
)
:
The meaning of Zina in Arabic has to do with extramarital or premarital sex. It is considered one of the great sins of Islam. The Greek meaning of Zina is a ‘guest’ or ‘stranger’. It can also mean ‘shining’ or ‘going back’. The ‘stranger’ meaning fits best with Zina’s nomadic character.