What’s in a name? Naming in the T.V.-series LOST

What’s in a name? Naming in the T.V.-series LOST –

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Didactics – English – Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 2,0, University of Cologne (Philosophische Fakultät / Englische Seminar 1), course: Onomastics, language: English, abstract: 1 Intro
2 Names of theotechny
2.1 Benjamin Linus
2.2 James (Sawyer) Ford
2.3 Jacob
2.4 Desmond and Penelope
2.5 Dharma
2.6 Christian Shephard
3 Famous names
3.1 Henry Gale
3.2 Daniel Faraday
3.3 Desmond David Hume
3.4 Danielle Rousseau
3.5 Further references
4 Reference to literature
4.1 The adventures of Tom Sawyer
4.2 The Wizard of Oz
4.3 Lord of the flies
4.4 Addendum
5 Anagrams
5.1 Ethan Rome
5.2 Mittelos Bioscience
5.3 Herarat Aviation
5.3.1 Amelia Earhart
5.3.2 A variation earth
5.4 Further Anagrams
6 Mixed patterns
6.1 Gale Island
6.2 Linus
6.3 Sayid Jarrah
6.4 Claire Littelton
6.5 Jack’s Tattoo
6.6 Literal meaning of names
7 Conclusion

Until the ninth century it was not likely to have a first and a last name, but by that time things started to change. In Venice the indication of surnames began in this time period, France (10th/11th century) and the German-speaking area (12th century) followed this example (Kohlheim 1996: 1280), so the common practice of naming changed and thenceforth people were called by both, forename and surname. This giving of names led to the science of onomastics – representing a separate discipline (Wittkowski 1995: 289) -, whose purpose basically is “die Geschichte und den Gebrauch eines Namens zu klären und mögliche Schlüsse daraus zu ziehen” (Hansack 2004: 51), as the character of naming had caused people to think about the meaning of personal names for centuries (Eichler 1995: 2). Such name-interpreting can also take the role of a poetic device and by this means as literary onomastic (Hansack 2004: 51) function as a link between linguistic and literary studies bearing on “the study of the way names function in fiction” (Ashley 1989: 198). The following term paper will take up this and consequently con