# Voldemort = Flight of Death? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 7, 2003, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738 "2003-07-07T09:56:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/1 "2003-07-07T09:56:15Z")
Can anyone tell me how Tom Riddle decided on his alias? I know that in one of the books he showed that “I am Lord Voldemort” was an anagram for Tom Marvolo Riddle. BUT It is not a real anagram without _I_ and _am_ AND Why did the Mudbloodophobic evil dark one use his hated father’s Muggle name as part of his near anagrammatical alias? So, is it a prophecy? Are he and Harry going to have a flying turbo-charged broomstick joust to the death at the end of the final book? Have any Dopers here read any of the books in French? If so, what is the name of the baddie, is he caled Lord Voldemort (in French) or is he called Lord Flightofdeath (in English)? (I concede that it would be very hard for a francophone to say, but you never know!!) And while I’m here: Do all the punny names in the books translate easily to other languages? ---
**Author:** ![bifar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bifar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bifar)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/2 "2003-07-07T10:03:18Z")
‘Voldemort’ can also mean (kind of) ‘theft of death’ which is correct if you think of old Voldy cheating death the first time round, and (Order of Phoenix spoilers) Makes the prophecy all the more harder on Harry – how exactly is he going to kill someone who keeps on cheating death? Malfoy translates roughly as ‘bad’ or ‘evil faith’, while Fleur Delacour means ‘Flower of the court’. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/3 "2003-07-07T10:13:19Z")
Delacour would be better translated as ‘flower of the _heart_’, though I know it’s really spelled coeur. ---
**Author:** ![bifar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bifar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bifar)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/4 "2003-07-07T10:29:50Z")
Yes, ‘coeur’ is spelt ‘coeur’, and ‘cour’ means ‘court’, hence my translation. I can’t find the cite, but I think Rowling said somewhere that she meant ‘cour’, not ‘coeur’. So a citeless _nyah_ to you.😉 ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/5 "2003-07-07T11:51:02Z")
So what’s Mundungus Fletcher mean in English? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/6 "2003-07-07T11:54:30Z")
My personal theory on the anagram: He was already being called Voldemort at school, so he probably came up with the name when he was fifteen or so. And playing with anagrams of your name to come up with something that sounds like a cool bad guy name is rather popular among geeky fifteen year old boys. Hence “I am Lord Voldemort.” ---
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/7 "2003-07-07T13:34:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by smiling bandit \* > \*\*So what’s Mundungus Fletcher mean in English? 😉 \*\* A fletcher makes arrows and Mundungus is generally all of a quiver in case Molly catches him in some of his dodgy dealings. 😃 Unless, of course, JK Rowling is a Doper and a Mundungus is a breed of goat. She subtly changed the phonetics of felching to throw us off the trail, but we have sussed out her cunning plan. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/8 "2003-07-07T13:42:35Z")
Personally, I find the school names rather entertaining. IIRC, “Beauxbatons” means “beautiful wands”, and I’m guessing “Durmstrang” is a play on “Sturm [und] Drang”, or “storm and stress”. As for “Hogwarts”, I can’t decide whether it’s a straight reversal of “warthogs” or just a funny-sounding name. ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/9 "2003-07-07T14:25:38Z")
In the webcast interview with Rowling she says “Mundungus” is an olde fashiondy word for tobacco. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/10 "2003-07-07T15:09:41Z")
OED backs her up on that - it’s an obsolete word for “offal” and for tobacco of very poor quality. ---
**Author:** ![mulletsunite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mulletsunite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mulletsunite)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2003, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/11 "2003-07-08T21:32:06Z")
a lot of the names are from Latin, like the spells, or from various kinds of mythology, so they don’t need to be changed to reflect a translation - there’s a thread on this board that’s all about the names in the harry potter series ---
**Author:** ![Manatee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@Manatee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manatee)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voldemort-flight-of-death/186738/12 "2003-07-09T00:00:51Z")
I always took the “Vol” part of his name as a derivative from the Latin “uolo.” Thus, “Death wish.”