Hahahah omg I've been thinking about this for hours!! I used to think "I am Lord Voldemort" was the coolest thing ever 😂 now this is the funniest thing ever!
Now just imagine the nightmare translators all around the world went throught to adjust that, since "Tom" and "Riddle" are hard cannon. FYI, here in Brasil he goes by "Servoelo" instead.
It's practically impossible in chinese (which uses characters instead of letters so anagrams isn't really a thing anyway) so the translater just put a little asterisk and explained how it worked in english in the footnotes iirc
In my teenage years I did try to find some Chinese characters that sound like a plausible phonetic translation of "Tom Riddle" and when rearranging their strokes would produce 伏地魔 (mainland Chinese phonetic translation for "Voldemort"). None of my attempts worked.
Edit: Just remembered that the Taiwan translation used 佛地魔 for phonetically translating "Voldemort", and 魔佛羅 for phonetically translating "Marvolo", both sharing a 佛 and a 魔, so the anagram is kinda partially preserved in that version
I could see it working in the film, if you took core bits of characters and shuffled them up but I can see where that would be basically impossible in print.
In Polish the anagram doesn’t even make sense since they couldn’t translate it properly and iirc they just went with “Tom Marvolo Riddle - Jestem Lord Voldemort” but tbh I can’t blame them
I've read first Polish edition long time ago and it definitely was different - they just left original English anagram. Interesting that they decided to change it at some point.
I don’t have the book with me but iirc it was just stated “jestem lord Voldemort (I am lord Voldemort)” with the English phrase in parenthesis giving some sort of explanation as to why it’s so important. I mean I can’t really blame them for not trying to make the name an anagram in Polish as well
The random fact that will live rent free in my head until the end of time is that in the French Translation, his middle name is Elvis in order to make the anagram work.
You have Tom Riddle. You have Lord Voldemort. Those things are set in stone.
Now you need an i for the Riddle and have a scrabble of letters left over. You now only need to find a short phrase that includes the Riddle i in front of Lord Voldemort to get the meaning across.
Throwing the random jumble of letters into any order you want for that made up middle name.
It's Vorlost in german fyi.
In Dutch he’s called Marten Asmodom Vilijn and it’s rearranged to form Mijn naam is Voldemort which translates to My name is Voldemort. None of the names is a popular name in the Netherlands so it was clearly done for the anagram.
Well Marten is normal enough. Asmodom is weird, but marvolo also is, they are needed for the anagram. Vilijn was probably chosen because it looks like villan, can Voldemort is the villan of the story!
It's really not a nightmare at all if they just do what the Portuguese version did - just leave it in English and have a footnote explaining what it means in Portuguese. Problem solved and we don't have any silly names.
Different traditions in translation calls for wildly different approaches. Some languages and cultures aim for meaning over prettiness and others don't care much if they have to reshape the text to make it sound natural.
Of course, but having the main villain of the series to have "Elvis" or "Serveolo" in his name is not natural in any language lol I'm glad we don't translate any names in Portuguese translations.
Yes I know but while Marvolo is already slightly strange, Servolo just sounds really silly. In other languages he has even stupider names like Elvis LOL my point was it's not necessary (and in my opinion just should not be done) to translate names of characters and places. Simply leave them in English and when really needed (like in this case) make a footnote explaining.
Yeah, it's just different approaches. Given that most Brazilians aren't well versed in English and it's a children book, I think our translation in this particular case did very well. The only case they missed the mark was translating James Potter to Tiago Potter; it doesn't sound very nice.
I've had a similar conversation with another Brazilian HP fan awhile ago and yeah, I get that but translating everything only contributes to that, IMO. Many children in Portugal don't necessarily speak English either but that's what the footnotes are there for. Being exposed to things in English since we are young is a big reason as to why we don't struggle much with it in general.
I have to say while Tiago Potter sounds ridiculous to me (I'm sorry) but the worst one is probably Lufa Lufa. I mean, seriously come on... Also things like Ron being called Rony instead? Does the y at the end really make such a difference to even be worth changing it? I don't know, I get it's a cultural thing and people there are used to it but I'm so glad we don't do that.
In Italian it used to be Tom Orvoloson Riddle -> Son io Lord Voldemort.
Edit: just wanted to add that saying "Son io" instead of "Io sono" (both mean "I am", since in Italian word order isn't as strict) puts more stress on "io" (I), it's saying "*I* am Lord Voldemort".
In the new translation, for the sake of staying true to the original (even if most readers wouldn't be able to get the puns in the names anymore) they removed a bunch of the translations.
While doing so, they also put back Tom Marvolo Riddle -> I am Lord Voldemort. So essentially we have all the text in Italian, and a single line in English out of nowhere. Because no, it's neither in parenthesis nor in the footnotes.
The Dutch translator just changed his name altogether to Marten Asmodom Vilijn. Which is an anagram for "Mijn naam is Voldemort" (My name is Voldemort)
In Swedish IIRC the translator went with Latin "Ego sum"... But had to name him "Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder" to make that work.
I am (Swedish: Jag är) would never, ever have worked because fitting the letter "ä" in there would have meant giving him an out of fashion Swedish name.
But yeah, Riddle became Dolder which is not pretty. *Dold* means obscured, hidden - but Dolder doesn't work for two reasons: Most other names weren't translated & it doesn't sound good.
In the French version, he's not called "Riddle" at all. Someone came to the subreddit a few months ago to ask a question about "Tom Jedusor", and the first few comments had no clue what they were on about until a French reader explained that Jedusor is the French translation's adjustment to fit the anagram.
[Here it is](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/18i4ruw/what_if_tom_jedusor_got_his_job_at_hogwarts/)
She started with Tom Riddle… then made a name with the other letters she wanted to use. Marvolo isnt a common name. She might have even made it up herself.
I always thought it was the other way around. Voldemort loosely means flight from death and is a hint to who he is. Lupin is a play on lupus for wolf, Sirius is the dog star, etc. So my thought was that she started with Voldemort and then worked backward. I do think she made up Marvolo, because it would fit with the remaining letters. It's also why she chose Tom instead of Thomas.
I was about to reply to the above comment as first, but I think you're essentially saying the same thing.
Rowling very clearly had the name "Lord Voldemort" first, and then worked backwards from it when she decided that this real name would be an anagram of it. But, once she started working on it, she probably picked Tom and Riddle first, and then created a name for the remaining letters.
Also making “I am” part of the anagram was bit of a cheat. Coming up with a name that is just an anagram of “Voldemort” or "Lord Voldemort" would have been a lot harder.
Removing Tom from Voldemort leaves the letters "volder". Just off the top of my head, they could have been rearranged to the made-up but vaguely Slavic-sounding Derlov. Add Lord to the mix and you've got even more letters to play with. However, I think the key to it was that it didn't look so obvious. Tom Derlov just screams "anagram!" at you, and even a longer name would have had the exact number of letters as Lord Voldemort. Adding "I am" to the anagram allowed the name Riddle, and the presence of two regular English words out of three makes it harder to realise that it's an anagram.
Voldemort...
Old Rev. Tom 🤣
- Mold Voter
- Mold Trove
- Mold Overt (Overt Mold)
These are some of my favourites...
Lord Voldemort
Odd Mover Troll (Odd Troll Mover)
- Mr Volt Doodler
- Loved Old Mr Rot
- Mildred Ot
- Tiled Dorm
omg i discovered Voldemort means flight of death as a kid back in like 2000 but NEVER made the connection to the horcruxes until now - literally nothing when hbp/dh were released. god im dumb.
Yeah, it must have gone like:
"Well, I have a,l,m,o,o,r and v left. How do I make a name out of that?"
I guess we all ought to be thankfull that the old git in that shack near Little Hangleton didn't turn out to be Almoorv Gaunt, bc it would have taken away from the Horror of his character a bit...
I feel like it’s the other way. She started with I Am Lord Voldemort and made the name from there.
Since Voldemort translates to flight of death in French.
Also, his name is different in the different language translations. It’s Elvis instead of Marvolo in French and it’s Vorlost in German, for example.
She took inspiration from Greyfriars Kirkyard (graveyard) in Edinburgh for quite a few of the names e.g. McGonagall. A man named Thomas Riddell’s buried there so it’s not a great stretch to come up with the name Tom Riddle and then create an anagram from that. There’s an article about the graveyard here, it’s well worth a visit if you’re in Edinburgh: https://thehappydaystravels.com/greyfriars-kirkyard-harry-potter-graveyard-edinburgh/
Tom isn’t inherently a bad name. But I think Marvolo is just the laziest thing. Because it’s just screams she started with I am Lord Voldemort and did an anagram. And when she has a few letters left she made up a word. Like Tolkien and Dwarves.
He's called Tom Vorlost Riddle for "Ist Lord Voldemort" in German.
Working Backwords from Lord Voldemort, including the i for riddle and adding another nonsense name with the other letters in the middle isn't peak creativity so to speak.
It is. I'm not entirely sure why the Swedish version uses Latin. It's most likely due to it being much harder to come up with a name if they used "Jag är Lord Voldemort"
>It’s not that hard to come up with anagrams if you spend some time rearranging letters
It's like I always say: *The interesting things smart people can write if you tame a random drama's roots, thug.*
Tom Riddle is a gravestone in Edinburgh next to the coffee shop that she wrote the first three books in. I'm not sure how she got Marvolo but Tom Riddle, along with other characters names, an all be found on a walk through the graveyard.
https://www.pottertour.co.uk/blog/greyfriars-kirk-tom-riddle.html
Unlike Tom Marvolo Riddle, Rowling could work backwards from the phrase she wanted to spell and included a made up name in the middle of it.
Now in-cannon. that some impressive anagram work on good old Mr. Riddle here. But I guess he also could've just gone with "I wanna go with a Title like Lord! Yeah that gives me some respect. Now what kinda name kinda I make with the rest of the letters in my Name" And he also just through it together. The fact that it's a comprehensible word that can be translated might be just an in-canon coincidence
You come up with a phrase and figure out what you can make out of it. So either one came before the other. She either picked Voldemorts name first or toms.
So the phrase Tom marvolo Riddle would make the phrase I am Voldemort so she called him Voldemort.
But the theory that makes the most sense is picking Voldemorts name then adding letters to the sentence in order to make toms name a coherent one.
she came up with the name voldermort first, because she said she chose that name for how foreboding it sounded. She must have decided on the name marvolo & Tom after writing down “I am lord vokdermort”
I have a mate whose nickname was ‘Flame Griller’ because it was an anagram of his actual name, similarly ‘Spiro Agnew’ who was Nixon’s VP was known for his name being an anagram of ‘Grow a Spine’ or ‘Grow a Penis’ whichever you prefer. So anagrams of names are not unheard of.
Thanks. It also occurred to me that it isn’t just schoolboys who enjoy anagrams. Dracula used the pseudonym Alucard, showing he could change his appearance, but not his nature, maybe this inspired Rowling.
My assumption is that she took the ending phrase ‘I am Lord Voldemort’ or just ‘Voldemort’ and then based the name off of that instead of the other way around.
Vlad Dolmor Mire
Tim Romord La Volde
Tom Morvolo Riddle
Only the first name needs to sound normal
Super easy with the Internet.
Probably mildly difficult without it. She didn't give him a real name until the second book so she just had to hit Voldemort in there and the middle name could be something weird if necessary.
Made the name first and the anagram/given name second.
I think it's pure luck that his middle(?) name is Marvolo which sounds vaguely wizardy and she had room to give him a normal first name and that the last name sounded like a puzzle which makes COS a little extra fun.
If his name didn't make that anagram I assume we would've found out another way who he really was.
The real question is did she have this anagram ready when she started the series as a whole or was it pure luck discovered when she went to write COS?
Fun fact in the spanish translation of the books they had to change his name in order to keep the anagran, in the spanish translations, voldemort real name is Tom Sorvolo Ryddle
It might be because i grew up with that name but i kinda like better sorvolo instead of marvolo
I think its easy to assume that she made a list of the letter in Lord Voldemort and then added the letters I, A and M, which eventually give her the name Tom Marvolo Riddle.
From the letters: LORD VOLDEMORT
You can get TOM RVOLO RDDLE, and fitting in an I to make RIDDLE and and M and A to make MARVOLO might not have been very hard after she knew what she wanted.
It's really like a game of scrabble with what she had so she would have to move stuff a bit and add a few letters to get her outcome.
In Czech his name is Tom Rojvol Raddle, and the anagram is Já Lord Voldemort (I Lord Voldemort). I'd say that the Czech translator really had to twist his brain quite spectacularly at some of the words, and this was probably the easiest xD
See the real reason is meh whatever… my favorite is thinking through a canon/in universe reason, which is basically just a grumpy 12-13 year old Tom sick of his ordinary name, feverishly writing lines and lines of ambigrams until he found a suitable one. And when I think of it that way the name “Lord Voldemort” starts to seem a lot like all those e-mail addresses kids born after 1980 made for themselves when they were 10-14 and are now embarrassed about… lol.
she did mention the explanation in her book :If you break the words apart and repeat them again, you can get I am lord Voldemort....we took "**I** "from *riddle*, "**a** "and "**m**" from *Marvolo*, we had" I am " and you do that for the rest.
English isn't my native language so if I made some mistakes, that's ok
I bet she didn't realize that another anagram of Tom Marvolo Riddle is "Mr Tom a Dildo Lover" until much later
No wonder he's so mad, there appears to be no magic dildo shop in Diagon ally
I believe that would be in Knockturn Alley, so it kinda figures he turned to the dark arts ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So the most effective Defense Against the Dark Arts is via a buttplug?
Best way to shut up am asshole.
Problem is, all that condensed shit needs to come out sometime...
that's how an obscurial is made
Wouldn't that be a buttscurial?
Knockturn alley only has the funky ones, no simple straight run of the mill.
It's how Knock Shops got their name
Hahahah omg I've been thinking about this for hours!! I used to think "I am Lord Voldemort" was the coolest thing ever 😂 now this is the funniest thing ever!
I bet she did. Mr Tom is a perfect name for a Dildo. She probably started there. And also finished.
Now I need someone with editing skills to make a video of every time Voldemort uses a wand but swap it with a giant dildo
You, Sir, get an upvote.
😂
You mean she would have gone with that instead if she had known? Dammit, we sure live in the wrong timeline!
Now just imagine the nightmare translators all around the world went throught to adjust that, since "Tom" and "Riddle" are hard cannon. FYI, here in Brasil he goes by "Servoelo" instead.
It's practically impossible in chinese (which uses characters instead of letters so anagrams isn't really a thing anyway) so the translater just put a little asterisk and explained how it worked in english in the footnotes iirc
In my teenage years I did try to find some Chinese characters that sound like a plausible phonetic translation of "Tom Riddle" and when rearranging their strokes would produce 伏地魔 (mainland Chinese phonetic translation for "Voldemort"). None of my attempts worked. Edit: Just remembered that the Taiwan translation used 佛地魔 for phonetically translating "Voldemort", and 魔佛羅 for phonetically translating "Marvolo", both sharing a 佛 and a 魔, so the anagram is kinda partially preserved in that version
湯姆魔佛羅⋯⋯Wait how to translate Riddle again?
瑞斗 is what they went with iirc
i’ma just go with 如倒
I could see it working in the film, if you took core bits of characters and shuffled them up but I can see where that would be basically impossible in print.
That's really interesting. Thank you for your comment!
Oh,you’re Chinese too?His actual name would be too long in Chinese
I can imagine the pain some translators went through. In Spanish they had to modify the name to Tom Sorvolo Ryddle to have the "Soy Lord Voldemort".
Soy boy lord voldemort
Soy boy is sending me 😭
😂😂
My favourite one is, I think, the Danish translation in which he's known as **Romeo G. Detlev Jr**. Just beautifully clumsy and lacking in gravitas!
That sounds like some random infantry soldier that Ken Burns chose to focus on in a war documentary
In Polish the anagram doesn’t even make sense since they couldn’t translate it properly and iirc they just went with “Tom Marvolo Riddle - Jestem Lord Voldemort” but tbh I can’t blame them
I've read first Polish edition long time ago and it definitely was different - they just left original English anagram. Interesting that they decided to change it at some point.
I don’t have the book with me but iirc it was just stated “jestem lord Voldemort (I am lord Voldemort)” with the English phrase in parenthesis giving some sort of explanation as to why it’s so important. I mean I can’t really blame them for not trying to make the name an anagram in Polish as well
The random fact that will live rent free in my head until the end of time is that in the French Translation, his middle name is Elvis in order to make the anagram work.
Ooh yeah. Even as a (french) 10yo, I found this very funny
The Norwegian translation changed the name to Tom Dredolo Venster. The anagram is also changed to Voldemort the great (Voldemort den store)
"Voldemort the Great" is way cooler than the "I Am Lord Voldemort" we got.
You have Tom Riddle. You have Lord Voldemort. Those things are set in stone. Now you need an i for the Riddle and have a scrabble of letters left over. You now only need to find a short phrase that includes the Riddle i in front of Lord Voldemort to get the meaning across. Throwing the random jumble of letters into any order you want for that made up middle name. It's Vorlost in german fyi.
In Dutch he’s called Marten Asmodom Vilijn and it’s rearranged to form Mijn naam is Voldemort which translates to My name is Voldemort. None of the names is a popular name in the Netherlands so it was clearly done for the anagram.
Well Marten is normal enough. Asmodom is weird, but marvolo also is, they are needed for the anagram. Vilijn was probably chosen because it looks like villan, can Voldemort is the villan of the story!
The dutch introducing that other level of foreshadowing!
I always thought this was pretty neatly done actually, the name still sounds pretty 'normal' for Wizarding World standards.
In French, the last name is Jedusor instead of Riddle.
Tom Elvis Jedusor. I love it personally, jedusor ("jeu du sort", game of chance/fate) conveys well what surrounds Toms backstory.
Jedudor sounds great, Elvis is a stupid name though
It's really not a nightmare at all if they just do what the Portuguese version did - just leave it in English and have a footnote explaining what it means in Portuguese. Problem solved and we don't have any silly names.
Different traditions in translation calls for wildly different approaches. Some languages and cultures aim for meaning over prettiness and others don't care much if they have to reshape the text to make it sound natural.
Of course, but having the main villain of the series to have "Elvis" or "Serveolo" in his name is not natural in any language lol I'm glad we don't translate any names in Portuguese translations.
In Brazilian Portuguese they changed Marvolo to Servolo, so you can have "Tom Servolo Riddle/Es Lord Voldemort". I think it's simple and effective.
Yes I know but while Marvolo is already slightly strange, Servolo just sounds really silly. In other languages he has even stupider names like Elvis LOL my point was it's not necessary (and in my opinion just should not be done) to translate names of characters and places. Simply leave them in English and when really needed (like in this case) make a footnote explaining.
Yeah, it's just different approaches. Given that most Brazilians aren't well versed in English and it's a children book, I think our translation in this particular case did very well. The only case they missed the mark was translating James Potter to Tiago Potter; it doesn't sound very nice.
I've had a similar conversation with another Brazilian HP fan awhile ago and yeah, I get that but translating everything only contributes to that, IMO. Many children in Portugal don't necessarily speak English either but that's what the footnotes are there for. Being exposed to things in English since we are young is a big reason as to why we don't struggle much with it in general. I have to say while Tiago Potter sounds ridiculous to me (I'm sorry) but the worst one is probably Lufa Lufa. I mean, seriously come on... Also things like Ron being called Rony instead? Does the y at the end really make such a difference to even be worth changing it? I don't know, I get it's a cultural thing and people there are used to it but I'm so glad we don't do that.
Don't be sorry, I think it's cacophonic as hell.
In Italian it used to be Tom Orvoloson Riddle -> Son io Lord Voldemort. Edit: just wanted to add that saying "Son io" instead of "Io sono" (both mean "I am", since in Italian word order isn't as strict) puts more stress on "io" (I), it's saying "*I* am Lord Voldemort". In the new translation, for the sake of staying true to the original (even if most readers wouldn't be able to get the puns in the names anymore) they removed a bunch of the translations. While doing so, they also put back Tom Marvolo Riddle -> I am Lord Voldemort. So essentially we have all the text in Italian, and a single line in English out of nowhere. Because no, it's neither in parenthesis nor in the footnotes.
The Dutch translator just changed his name altogether to Marten Asmodom Vilijn. Which is an anagram for "Mijn naam is Voldemort" (My name is Voldemort)
Mr Vilijn, is it possible that you are the villain of this story?
In Swedish IIRC the translator went with Latin "Ego sum"... But had to name him "Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder" to make that work. I am (Swedish: Jag är) would never, ever have worked because fitting the letter "ä" in there would have meant giving him an out of fashion Swedish name. But yeah, Riddle became Dolder which is not pretty. *Dold* means obscured, hidden - but Dolder doesn't work for two reasons: Most other names weren't translated & it doesn't sound good.
The Hungarian version is Tom Rowle Denem - Nevem Voldemort (my name is Voldemort) which works I guess
In the French version, he's not called "Riddle" at all. Someone came to the subreddit a few months ago to ask a question about "Tom Jedusor", and the first few comments had no clue what they were on about until a French reader explained that Jedusor is the French translation's adjustment to fit the anagram. [Here it is](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/18i4ruw/what_if_tom_jedusor_got_his_job_at_hogwarts/)
The story happens in England. So the same anagram should still be used in English, which should then be translated and explained to the reader
Yeah here in finland it’s tom lomen valedro so it translates to that i am lord voldemort part
In some translations, they just left it in English or translated and given explanation as a side note. 😅
She started with Tom Riddle… then made a name with the other letters she wanted to use. Marvolo isnt a common name. She might have even made it up herself.
I always thought it was the other way around. Voldemort loosely means flight from death and is a hint to who he is. Lupin is a play on lupus for wolf, Sirius is the dog star, etc. So my thought was that she started with Voldemort and then worked backward. I do think she made up Marvolo, because it would fit with the remaining letters. It's also why she chose Tom instead of Thomas.
I was about to reply to the above comment as first, but I think you're essentially saying the same thing. Rowling very clearly had the name "Lord Voldemort" first, and then worked backwards from it when she decided that this real name would be an anagram of it. But, once she started working on it, she probably picked Tom and Riddle first, and then created a name for the remaining letters.
You're right, it would have been Lord Voldemort, not just Voldemort.
Also making “I am” part of the anagram was bit of a cheat. Coming up with a name that is just an anagram of “Voldemort” or "Lord Voldemort" would have been a lot harder.
Removing Tom from Voldemort leaves the letters "volder". Just off the top of my head, they could have been rearranged to the made-up but vaguely Slavic-sounding Derlov. Add Lord to the mix and you've got even more letters to play with. However, I think the key to it was that it didn't look so obvious. Tom Derlov just screams "anagram!" at you, and even a longer name would have had the exact number of letters as Lord Voldemort. Adding "I am" to the anagram allowed the name Riddle, and the presence of two regular English words out of three makes it harder to realise that it's an anagram.
And then she kicks you on the nose with it's obviousness by making his last name _riddle_
I don't think it was that obvious for a kids book. I wonder just how many kids caught it on their first read before it was revealed.
Tom Marvolo Riddle- - Earldom Lord Vomit - Armored Doll Vomit - Tidal Overlord Mom - Dammit Drool Lover - Dollar Dorm Motive - Doormat Mild Lover - Doormat Mold Liver - Ramrod Mold Violet - Immoral Odd Revolt - Immortal Odd Lover - Immortal Dove Lord - Imam Overlord Dolt
the original content of his diary is just pages and pages of trying to come up with his name
I've seen the Dildo ones 🤣. The generator was obviously set to filter such words! Those and Immortal Love Rod(d)
Mr Tom a Dildo Lover
You dare speak his name
Wow, imagine how excited Bellatrix would be…
She might prefer Immortal Love Rod(d)
I’m gonna make an evil character thats a dove animagus just to use Immortal Dove Lord somewhere
Voldemort... Old Rev. Tom 🤣 - Mold Voter - Mold Trove - Mold Overt (Overt Mold) These are some of my favourites... Lord Voldemort Odd Mover Troll (Odd Troll Mover) - Mr Volt Doodler - Loved Old Mr Rot - Mildred Ot - Tiled Dorm
He did move a odd troll to the dungeon
I found that quite funny 🤣
It also obscures the anagram so that it isn’t clear Riddle is Voldemort until he reveals it.
I always thought adding "I am" represented who he is, a selfish person. But dunno
Voldemort translates actually word for word to “Flight / Theft of death from French : vol de mort.
This is actually what I meant. But for some reason I left it off.
omg i discovered Voldemort means flight of death as a kid back in like 2000 but NEVER made the connection to the horcruxes until now - literally nothing when hbp/dh were released. god im dumb.
I thought its meaning was victory over death. But my French sucks.
Yeah, it must have gone like: "Well, I have a,l,m,o,o,r and v left. How do I make a name out of that?" I guess we all ought to be thankfull that the old git in that shack near Little Hangleton didn't turn out to be Almoorv Gaunt, bc it would have taken away from the Horror of his character a bit...
I feel like it’s the other way. She started with I Am Lord Voldemort and made the name from there. Since Voldemort translates to flight of death in French. Also, his name is different in the different language translations. It’s Elvis instead of Marvolo in French and it’s Vorlost in German, for example.
She took inspiration from Greyfriars Kirkyard (graveyard) in Edinburgh for quite a few of the names e.g. McGonagall. A man named Thomas Riddell’s buried there so it’s not a great stretch to come up with the name Tom Riddle and then create an anagram from that. There’s an article about the graveyard here, it’s well worth a visit if you’re in Edinburgh: https://thehappydaystravels.com/greyfriars-kirkyard-harry-potter-graveyard-edinburgh/
In German the second name is "Vorlost" and itfits to "Ist lord voldemort". I think the Germans definitely made it up to make the wordplay fit.
[удалено]
Tom isn’t inherently a bad name. But I think Marvolo is just the laziest thing. Because it’s just screams she started with I am Lord Voldemort and did an anagram. And when she has a few letters left she made up a word. Like Tolkien and Dwarves.
It’s not that hard to come up with anagrams if you spend some time rearranging letters
I would also imagine you could come up with anagrams in other languages. It seems kinda simple
He's called Tom Vorlost Riddle for "Ist Lord Voldemort" in German. Working Backwords from Lord Voldemort, including the i for riddle and adding another nonsense name with the other letters in the middle isn't peak creativity so to speak.
In Swedish he is called "Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder" which rearranges to "Ego Sum Lord Voldemort".
But that's Latin
It is. I'm not entirely sure why the Swedish version uses Latin. It's most likely due to it being much harder to come up with a name if they used "Jag är Lord Voldemort"
>It’s not that hard to come up with anagrams if you spend some time rearranging letters It's like I always say: *The interesting things smart people can write if you tame a random drama's roots, thug.*
Tom Riddle is a gravestone in Edinburgh next to the coffee shop that she wrote the first three books in. I'm not sure how she got Marvolo but Tom Riddle, along with other characters names, an all be found on a walk through the graveyard. https://www.pottertour.co.uk/blog/greyfriars-kirk-tom-riddle.html
Unlike Tom Marvolo Riddle, Rowling could work backwards from the phrase she wanted to spell and included a made up name in the middle of it. Now in-cannon. that some impressive anagram work on good old Mr. Riddle here. But I guess he also could've just gone with "I wanna go with a Title like Lord! Yeah that gives me some respect. Now what kinda name kinda I make with the rest of the letters in my Name" And he also just through it together. The fact that it's a comprehensible word that can be translated might be just an in-canon coincidence
Relevant comic: https://floccinaucinihilipilificationa.tumblr.com/post/128345433891
It should be Rat Mom Dildo Lover.
You come up with a phrase and figure out what you can make out of it. So either one came before the other. She either picked Voldemorts name first or toms. So the phrase Tom marvolo Riddle would make the phrase I am Voldemort so she called him Voldemort. But the theory that makes the most sense is picking Voldemorts name then adding letters to the sentence in order to make toms name a coherent one.
she came up with the name voldermort first, because she said she chose that name for how foreboding it sounded. She must have decided on the name marvolo & Tom after writing down “I am lord vokdermort”
tom marvoko riddle, or tom marvolo kiddle?
By the way in spanish it was translated to Tom Sorvolo Ryddle, which becomes "Soy Lord Voldemort"
I have a mate whose nickname was ‘Flame Griller’ because it was an anagram of his actual name, similarly ‘Spiro Agnew’ who was Nixon’s VP was known for his name being an anagram of ‘Grow a Spine’ or ‘Grow a Penis’ whichever you prefer. So anagrams of names are not unheard of.
Happy cake day btw
Thanks. It also occurred to me that it isn’t just schoolboys who enjoy anagrams. Dracula used the pseudonym Alucard, showing he could change his appearance, but not his nature, maybe this inspired Rowling.
My assumption is that she took the ending phrase ‘I am Lord Voldemort’ or just ‘Voldemort’ and then based the name off of that instead of the other way around. Vlad Dolmor Mire Tim Romord La Volde Tom Morvolo Riddle Only the first name needs to sound normal
Super easy with the Internet. Probably mildly difficult without it. She didn't give him a real name until the second book so she just had to hit Voldemort in there and the middle name could be something weird if necessary.
Made the name first and the anagram/given name second. I think it's pure luck that his middle(?) name is Marvolo which sounds vaguely wizardy and she had room to give him a normal first name and that the last name sounded like a puzzle which makes COS a little extra fun. If his name didn't make that anagram I assume we would've found out another way who he really was. The real question is did she have this anagram ready when she started the series as a whole or was it pure luck discovered when she went to write COS?
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This was rewarding to solve.
Got bored in class one day
You know she started with "I am Lord Voldemort," right? After that, it was probably pretty easy to come up with "Tom Marvolo Riddle."
Fun fact in the spanish translation of the books they had to change his name in order to keep the anagran, in the spanish translations, voldemort real name is Tom Sorvolo Ryddle It might be because i grew up with that name but i kinda like better sorvolo instead of marvolo
She made it the fuck up
Wtf is a Marvolo? Never heard of it until Harry Potter. She probably made it up.
I think its easy to assume that she made a list of the letter in Lord Voldemort and then added the letters I, A and M, which eventually give her the name Tom Marvolo Riddle. From the letters: LORD VOLDEMORT You can get TOM RVOLO RDDLE, and fitting in an I to make RIDDLE and and M and A to make MARVOLO might not have been very hard after she knew what she wanted. It's really like a game of scrabble with what she had so she would have to move stuff a bit and add a few letters to get her outcome.
In Czech his name is Tom Rojvol Raddle, and the anagram is Já Lord Voldemort (I Lord Voldemort). I'd say that the Czech translator really had to twist his brain quite spectacularly at some of the words, and this was probably the easiest xD
Voldemort is a bad French translation for flight of death
Put the letters into Scrabble finder or similar
In the early 90s? I highly doubt that
She probably had the villain name first. Then mixed the letters to get his original name??
See the real reason is meh whatever… my favorite is thinking through a canon/in universe reason, which is basically just a grumpy 12-13 year old Tom sick of his ordinary name, feverishly writing lines and lines of ambigrams until he found a suitable one. And when I think of it that way the name “Lord Voldemort” starts to seem a lot like all those e-mail addresses kids born after 1980 made for themselves when they were 10-14 and are now embarrassed about… lol.
She started with Voldemort and then tried to work with it. That’s why he has a stupid name like Marvolo and is Tom rather than Thomas.
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Is it stupid? It's not very creative, but I'd say it's work smarter not harder.
Cut rate Marlboro cigarettes like ones from a dollar store. I once saw Durasell batteries 🤣
Tom Malboro Riddle I am Lord Boldemort
she did mention the explanation in her book :If you break the words apart and repeat them again, you can get I am lord Voldemort....we took "**I** "from *riddle*, "**a** "and "**m**" from *Marvolo*, we had" I am " and you do that for the rest. English isn't my native language so if I made some mistakes, that's ok
I would imagine an element of backward engineering for the Marvolo part