Criminal Minds: The Naming of Cats (Elle, Morgan, Prentiss)

[truepenny]

Gideon
Hotch
Reid
JJ
Garcia


ELLE GREENAWAY

Bear's post on genderfuck talks about Elle's first name and says, really, everything I would say here. Elle, which not even Rule admits as a name, is the French for "she," and of course there's always Elle Magazine. Femininity is literally Elle's first name, and she's the only character on the show whose first name is habitually used by the others.

Greenaway may refer to Peter Greenaway (IMDb, Wikipedia), although I confess that my first association is with Kate Greenaway, Victorian illustrator and protegee of John Ruskin.

"Green" may also refer to Elle being the new kid, although green is probably the one thing she isn't.




DEREK MORGAN

Withycombe:

Diederick or Dirck is the Dutch form of German Diederich, from Old German Theodoric (q.v.). Dederick, Dyryke, Deryk are found in England in the 15th century, borrowed, no doubt, from the Low Countries. Camden gives Derric as the English and Terry as the French forms of Theodoric. The name has been revived during the 20th C; it is now oftener spelt Derek than Derrick.

(Parenthetically, can I just say that I now have a burning desire to name a character Dyryke?)

Rule:

Old German: Dietrich. "Ruler of the people." Derek Bond, Dirk Bogarde, actors; Dirk Bouts, 15th century Dutch painter.

Spence follows Rule, although she gives the origin simply as "Teutonic."

(Which, because I am a bad Mole, gives me Buffy flashbacks.

BUFFY: What? You think that boys can take care of themselves and girls need help?
RILEY: Yeah.
BUFFY: That is so Teutonic.
("The Initiative," 4.7))

I got nothin' on Morgan's first name, aside from Bear's observation that it is not a name a serial killer has ever had.

Morgan, on the other hand . . .

Withycombe:

Welsh, cognate with Irish Muirgen. The first element is mor 'the sea'. It has been a favorite Welsh name from early times, and is used to render Pelagius in the Welsh Book of Common Prayer.

Rule:

Old Welsh: Morcan. "White sea." Dweller by majestic, foamy breakers. Morgan Beatty, commentator.

Spence:

[Welsh] 'White sea'. The foam flecked waves.

(Both Rule and Spence, please note, are having bad poetry outbreaks in lieu of actual information.)

Morgan le Fay is, of course, the most famous namesake. More genderfuck. Morgan is also about as close as the writers can get to Mordred without becoming too meta for disbelief to remain suspended. Derek Morgan, who is extremely loyal, seems an odd choice to land that interetextual freight on, but it's something to keep in mind.




EMILY PRENTISS

Prentiss's first name does not suit her.

Withycombe:

Emily, Emilia (f.).: f. of Latin Aemilius, the name of a plebeian gens. Boccaccio's use of Emilia for the heroine of his Teseide helped to bring the name into use in the later Middle Ages, and Chaucer in his Knight's Tale anglicized it as Emelye. In FA (Heref) 1316 there occurs Emulea la Prys, which may be this name, and Emerlee is found in 1694. But it was not much used before the 18th C; George II's daughter, Princess Amelia, was usually called Princess Emily, and it was probably as a supposed equivalent of Amelia (q.v.) that Emily came into general use in the 19th C.

Rule:

Gothic: Amala. "Industrious one," or Latin: Aemilia. "Flattering, winning one." See Amelia. Emily Brontë, English novelist; Princess Emily, daughter of England's King George II; Emily Dickinson, American poet; Emily Post, etiquette arbiter; Emilie Dionne, of the famous quintuplets.

Spence also labels Emily as Teutonic, and says it means "industrious."

Much as with Morgan, Prentiss's first name gives me nothing. She gets called by it mostly when Reid is attacking her. (Elle and Emily both start with E. I have no idea if this is relevant.)

Prentiss, as I believe the writers have said, points to apprentice. Prentiss's status as the new kid--and as someone who doesn't have a career history in profiling--is definitely highlighted by her surname.


And that concludes our whirlwind tour of the onomastics of Criminal Minds. Thank you and good night.

Comments

[slash-girl.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't mind, but I've included a link to this post on the most recent edition of bau_inbox, a newsletter for the CM fandom. If you want it removed, let me know and I'll remove it.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I don't mind a bit. In fact, thank you!

[szeretni.livejournal.com]

Good work! I enjoy reading your research in names. :) It's very interesting.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

The thing that seemed glaringly obvious to me about Prentiss' first name is that Em (M) comes after Elle (L). As Bear says, they do love their puns.

This has been interesting. Thanks! (I met a couple more fan/writer CM devotees at Potlatch last weekend. We all agreed on the amazingness of the show and its characterization. We also all agreed we watched NUMB3RS although it was very formulaic because David Krumhotlz is The Hot.)

MKK

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

I want to get Greenaway back to the Green Knight....

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Which would fit in certain weird ways with my Hotch-as-Gawain theory.

Hotch/Gawain defeats Elle/the Green Knight in "The Boogeyman," but he does not come away with his own honor untarnished. (The rest of SG&tGK does not remotely map, but we'll let that go.)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

The thing that seemed glaringly obvious to me about Prentiss' first name is that Em (M) comes after Elle (L). As Bear says, they do love their puns.

Ooh! Good one!

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Well, I dunno. I think Hotch does come out with his integrity intact.

If Hotch makes mistakes, it's in thinking everybody else acts from the same base assumptions he does.

I am also a Hotch for Gawain partisan, but at least on the whiteboard, he maps to Bors.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Well, and he also makes mistake mistakes. You know what I mean.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Mm, sorry. I didn't say that quite right.

Hotch, like Gawain, is dissatisfied by his own performance in re: Elle/the Green Knight. I agree that Hotch's integrity is intact. If he could have proved Elle shot whatsisface in cold blood, he would have. But that's actually one of the interesting things about SG&tGK. Nobody but Gawain thinks he has anything to be ashamed of. Gawain did slip, but there's a kind of subjectivity of judgment there that is really what I was trying to point to.

Hotch is his own sternest critic. Like Gawain. That's what I meant.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

yes. *g*

[szeretni.livejournal.com]

But what about Elle's accusation that Hotchner was responsible for her getting shot? Technically, it wasn't Hotch who botched, it was the guy who was supposed to watch Elle BUT there was som doubt whether or not Hotch told the guy to walk her to the door and make sure everything was OK. And Elle certainly saw it as Hotch's responsibility.

I'm not saying it was Hotch's fault but...well, she was shot and it could have been prevented if everyone had been more careful. :)

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Absolutely it was Hotch's fault. He assumed the other guy would understand the subtext in his instruction--"and stay with her"--because Hotch can't imagine that anyone would leave another agent alone in such a situation.

He assumed that the other agent would do what Hotch would have done, in other words.

And so Elle got shot.

[(Anonymous)]

So, doesn't that mean his integrity is...whatever the word is? Or am I misinterpreting the word integrity? English isn't my native tongue so... ;)

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

I think you are misinterpreting the word integrity.

It doesn't mean that he's not fallible. It means that he always tries to act with honor.

[szeretni.livejournal.com]

Ok, thanks! :)

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*g* any time!

By the way, I never would have known you were not a native English speaker if you had not said. *g*

[(Anonymous)]

*g* Thanks for the compliment! I never get tired of hearing it. :)

I guess sometimes I have to say it because sometimes when somebody misunderstands me, it can be because I use the wrong word or bad grammar. And I don't want to people to think I'm stupid. ;) But yeah, even those who know tend to forget after a while...

[szeretni.livejournal.com]

There is something wrong with my Log In thingy...