Criminal Minds: The Naming of Cats (Reid)
Mar. 10th, 2007 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Gideon
Hotch
JJ
Garcia
Elle
Morgan
Prentiss
SPENCER REID
Withycombe does not admit Spencer as a first name.
Rule says:
Spence says:
My suspicion is that if Reid's first name points to anything, it's to Edmund Spenser, 16th century English poet and author of The Faerie Queene, a massive (incomplete) narrative poem in which various knights go questing about the highly allegorical landscape and defeat monsters and sorcerers and all kinds of really cool stuff happens. (I like The Faerie Queene a lot.) Spenser also positions it as a kind of prequel to the Arthurian cycle, since one of the knights is Arthur himself, questing in search of/to bring honor to Gloriana, the eponymous Faerie Queene and a transparent stand-in for Elizabeth I. (We never actually see Gloriana; she's the absent center of the poem.) The knights are all allegorical (allegory in Spenser is very complicated, but that's really a subject for another post), and one of them is female, so there's a possibility that, along with mapping onto Arthurian knights and archangels, the BAU may map onto Spenserian knights as well, which is appropriate because Spenserian quests tend to be highly ambiguous and sometimes only dubiously successful. And no matter what the allegorical monster looks like, the knights are always really fighting themselves.
According to Rule, who lists it as a first name, Reid is a variant of Read which is from the Old English for "red-headed" or "red-complexioned." (Spence concurs, and since read does actually mean "red" in Anglo-Saxon, I think we can provisionally take it as true.) I think the importance of Reid for CM, though, is the multiplicity of puns it allows.
Read--20,000 words a minute
Reed--as in the phrase "a weak reed." Considering the importance of the weak/strong dichotomy in "Revelations," this seems deeply relevant.
Rede--counsel
You can even make an argument for Reid's name as being kludged together to mean "dispenser of counsel," which fits with his status as the walking reference library of the BAU.
Hotch
JJ
Garcia
Elle
Morgan
Prentiss
SPENCER REID
Withycombe does not admit Spencer as a first name.
Rule says:
Middle English: Spencer. "Dispenser of provisions." A man in charge of the village or manor house provisions. H. Spencer Lewis, historian, archaeologist; Spencer Tracy, actor.
Spence says:
[French] 'Shopkeeper; dispenser of provisions'
My suspicion is that if Reid's first name points to anything, it's to Edmund Spenser, 16th century English poet and author of The Faerie Queene, a massive (incomplete) narrative poem in which various knights go questing about the highly allegorical landscape and defeat monsters and sorcerers and all kinds of really cool stuff happens. (I like The Faerie Queene a lot.) Spenser also positions it as a kind of prequel to the Arthurian cycle, since one of the knights is Arthur himself, questing in search of/to bring honor to Gloriana, the eponymous Faerie Queene and a transparent stand-in for Elizabeth I. (We never actually see Gloriana; she's the absent center of the poem.) The knights are all allegorical (allegory in Spenser is very complicated, but that's really a subject for another post), and one of them is female, so there's a possibility that, along with mapping onto Arthurian knights and archangels, the BAU may map onto Spenserian knights as well, which is appropriate because Spenserian quests tend to be highly ambiguous and sometimes only dubiously successful. And no matter what the allegorical monster looks like, the knights are always really fighting themselves.
According to Rule, who lists it as a first name, Reid is a variant of Read which is from the Old English for "red-headed" or "red-complexioned." (Spence concurs, and since read does actually mean "red" in Anglo-Saxon, I think we can provisionally take it as true.) I think the importance of Reid for CM, though, is the multiplicity of puns it allows.
Read--20,000 words a minute
Reed--as in the phrase "a weak reed." Considering the importance of the weak/strong dichotomy in "Revelations," this seems deeply relevant.
Rede--counsel
You can even make an argument for Reid's name as being kludged together to mean "dispenser of counsel," which fits with his status as the walking reference library of the BAU.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 10:33 pm (UTC)"Rede" can also be used as "Law."
And:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique
no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 10:37 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spenser_(fictional_detective)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 01:10 am (UTC)And how many other Elizabethan playwrights are running around solving crimes?
no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 01:22 am (UTC)And the only other one I know about is Fletcher.
I mean to do something with Jonson one of these days though, if I ever skip genres.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 01:42 am (UTC)o.O
...
I so want to write that now.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 05:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 09:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 10:56 pm (UTC)Guess what I just noticed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_country#USA
...considering Hotch and Gideon's conversation regarding naming Jack, I don't think that's coincidence.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 11:00 pm (UTC)MKK
no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 07:26 pm (UTC)MKK
no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 02:00 am (UTC)(Also, in keeping with recent episodes, I noticed at least four women in that list.)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 02:11 am (UTC)I suspect this also helps explain why all the men on the team have somewhat uncommon first names.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 07:35 pm (UTC)MKK
no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 04:54 am (UTC)The Lone Ranger's last name is Reid, as is that of his great-nephew (or great-great-) the Green Hornet. (cf., among other sources, http://www.endeavorcomics.com/largent/ranger/faq.html)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-13 03:43 pm (UTC)"Reid"is an element of two Norweigan names: The male being Reidar, whihc means "Home army" or "home warrior" and the female (my name) being Reidun, which means "home loving." Reid means "home." (It's also pronounced "Raid" not "Reed" but this being America, I know it's easier to sometimes just go with the mispronounciation than constantly correct it.) I have NO idea if Reid would ever be used as a Scandinavian surname.