The other day I had a revelation of sorts, though perhaps revelation might be a strong word to describe it. It was regarding the name of the main character in my story, Adroegen, and in particular, the name’s meaning.

Now to begin, I must first tell of how I found the name. It was more than a few years ago that I came across it, when looking through old Germanic names for my characters. I found the name at one point, though I only found it once and was never able to find it again after. The reason for this was that the original spelling that I found was different from the spelling I use in my story, as it featured letters that are not in the modern alphabet.

The name I found had two meanings, being strong and sad. I felt these descriptions fitted well with the character, and so I gave him the name of Adroegen. The name itself was either Old English or Gaelic, and for the longest time I believed the name to be Gaelic.

The names for the other five characters I had always been able to find again when searching. Caitren and Kattalin are actually both variants of the name Catherine, which means pure. Edelbir was borrowed from Old High German, with a meaning of being noble and honorable. Gleowan’s name comes from Old English, meaning to play games, joke, and make a fool of oneself. Vaenn is from Old Norse, meaning beautiful. For some of those names, I did alter the spellings a little, but I never had trouble finding those names again whenever looking them up. Adroegen’s name, however, I had not been able to find again since that one time years ago when I came across it.

Well, just the other day, I was looking up names for future characters in my books, and from out of nowhere, I found a word in Old English called Adreogan. I was not at all expecting to find the name that I used for my main character, but I did. This word was spelled differently, with the e in the middle coming before the o, and an a as the final vowel, whereas the spelling that I use for my character is Adroegen, with the o coming before the e, and an e as the final vowel.

I believed the name to be Gaelic all this time, but it turned out to actually be of Old English. Though perhaps there is a Gaelic variant of the word somewhere. Caitren and Kattalin, after all, are both variants of Catherine, with Caitren being of an Irish origin and Kattalin being Basque.

The meaning for the Old English name I found the other day was to bear, as in bear a burden, to endure, or to suffer. Though its meaning is not the same as the name I found years ago, being strong and sad, it still fit my main character perfectly, as Adroegen has dealt with much torment in his past, and there will be more struggles for him as the story goes on. That, however, I best not go into detail on right now with only one book out.

That was just a funny little story that I had to tell. Farewell and take care until the next posting.