Witches Burn at Dawn ✔

Names & Meanings

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While I have no finished story to publish, I thought of sharing some behind-the-scenes stuff with you, the hows and the whys of the story. It might be fun, right? Anyway if you want to know something, like how a particular chapter or scene was created, let me know! I'd love to share some more insider ideas with you!

Meanwhile, I wanna tell you about our characters' names. It took me a while to figure out each one and find the names that clicked with each personality...And as you well know, each word and each name has a power hidden within them, right? So here are some:

YAROSLAVA is an old Slavic pagan name, which means "fierce" or "glorious".

Fun fact: in the very first draft, I wanted to call Yara VASILISA, like Vasilisa The Wise from old Slavic fairytales... But Yara is Yara, right? However wise she might be, she is fierce. Period.

VLADIMIR (as Mir's grandfather told him in one of the chapters) means "the owner/ruler of the world". Well, we all know Mir's father wanted just that, huh? For Mir to be the best and the greatest. Too bad obsessive desire to rule the entire world never brings anything good as we all know.

Another meaning of the name Mir is "peace". Yes, in Russia, world and peace are (what a wicked irony) the same word.

Fun fact: in Slavic languages, VLAD and VLADIMIR are actually two different names. VLAD is short for VLADISLAV, and VLADIMIR's short form is (O_o) VOVA. Don't ask me why, it doesn't make any sense to me either, lol. But after all, the English name DICK is short for RICHARD...

NILAM is an Indian name, which means "blue" in Sanskrit. I'm not good at Indian culture, so don't judge me if I'm wrong, I found the name online like many others. But blue is perfect, considering that Nilam's hair is bright blue, right? Just wanted to add some color 💙

BOGDAN is another Slavic name, which literally means "given by God". How ironic, Bogdan's grandma and her obsession with the church brought Bogdan nothing but sadness and loneliness. And...a demon named Given by God? Oh well, yes, I'm wicked.

JASNA means "clear", "bright", like the sky. And she is the sunshine lightening the path with her humor and helping Yara and all the others, even though she's not actually an active character until the epilogue.

 ADELARD  means "noble" and "brave", it's a name of a saint from old French. Our Ady is both noble and brave, so I guess it fits perfectly.

KADRI is the Estonian version of the name Katherine, aka Kate. In the Greek origin, it means "pure".

LAVERNA is, as far as I know, originally the name of a Roman goddess of thieves and thievery.

GYOKU is a Japanese name that means "gem". And isn't he? With all the glamor and glitter of an actor who is born to shine and help Ady believe in love.

RUSLAN (Mir's half-brother) is the name of a hero in Tatar and Russian folklore.

And last but not least...

TATYA is the feminine form of the name of a Roman king and a saint. But I chose it for a different reason. Tatya, or Tatyana, was the name of the main character of the most famous Russian poem "Eugene Onegin" written by Pushkin. In that poem, Tatya was a girl desperately in love with a man who never loved her back... I guess our Tatya could never be with Mir, either. No matter how much she's been pining over him when she and Yara were small.

Oh, and two more!

Mir's dog is called AAMON. That's the name of a real (as much as you believe it can be) demon familiar from Medieval demonology treatise, lol.

MOROX, the potion Nilam and Ady used, is a demon name as well.

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