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Names you can make from 'Daenerys'

Craving Peaches

By Craving Peaches,
in General (ASoIaF)

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Alester Florent Council Member

Alester Florent

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Treating the question more seriously than intended, it's not significant. There are 43 distinct Targaryen names that appear throughout the saga and the histories and all but four of them follow a fairly similar pattern, with three of those four merely being unusual rather than outlandish (and the fourth being "Duncan", which is obviously non-Targaryen in origin, and two of the others (Alyssa and Alyssane) possibly being Velaryon imports rather than native Targ names). Although I don't know the High Valyrian language at all and I wonder whether there actually is any linguistic significiance, or whether GRRM was just looking for some phonetic consistency.

The pattern is hard to explain, but obvious when you look at them: it's the "ae" sound followed by a voiced plosive or nasal, or a liquid, followed by a suffix (with "on", "ys", "a" and "yra" being most common). Some names also have a prefix.

The "ae" at the core of Targ names is occasionally collapsed into "e" or "a". "-rys" is a common and gender-neutral suffix. So "Aerys" is a common root name to which a number of prefixes are applied, giving us Viserys, Jaehaerys, Daenerys and Matarys.

One (semi)-interesting point: Velaryon names often follow an identical pattern but there is virtually no overlap in the names themselves. Also potentially interesting: of all the Great Bastards, only Bloodraven doesn't have a Targaryen given name.

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Craving Peaches Council Member

Craving Peaches

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3 hours ago, Many-Faced Votary said:

This clear joke post still involves more "logic" than certain people offer with posts made in earnest.

It's not entirely serious but I do think there could be something with the 'Aerys' thing. I don't mean this in an insulting manner to Daenerys, of course. As I said above I think she has some fears about being like him, she didn't think it was the 'right time' to hear the whole story from Barristan.

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SeanF Council Member

SeanF

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Nerys means “lord, hero” in Welsh.  The prefix “Dae” in Korean means “great”.

”Daen” in Hebrew means “God is my judge.

By comparison, “Arya” means “noble” in Sanskrit, while Sansa means “praise, charm”.

 

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SeanF Council Member

SeanF

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Just now, Craving Peaches said:

We could also have Erys -> Eris, goddess of discord...thought in Daenerys' case it would be a good kind of discord.

God is My Judge is ambiguous.  It can imply that a person knows they will be judged by God, or alternatively, that only God may judge that person.  The latter is the basis of The Divine Right of Kings.

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Many-Faced Votary Landed Knight

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1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

It's not entirely serious but I do think there could be something with the 'Aerys' thing. I don't mean this in an insulting manner to Daenerys, of course. As I said above I think she has some fears about being like him, she didn't think it was the 'right time' to hear the whole story from Barristan.

It's true; it wasn't the right time for her, and those were understandable circumstances, considering Barristan had only been revealed in one of her chapters before. But note that she accepts the truth and doesn't hide from it even so:

Questions? She had a hundred questions, a thousand, ten thousand. Why couldn't she think of one? "Was my father truly mad?" she blurted out. Why do I ask that? "Viserys said this talk of madness was a ploy of the Usurper's . . ."

"Viserys was a child, and the queen sheltered him as much as she could. Your father always had a little madness in him, I now believe. Yet he was charming and generous as well, so his lapses were forgiven. His reign began with such promise . . . but as the years passed, the lapses grew more frequent, until . . ."

Dany stopped him. "Do I want to hear this now?"

Daenerys VI, A Storm of Swords

And then, as promised, she proactively asks about Aerys when she feels ready:

Ser Barristan shifted in the saddle. "Not … not loved. Mayhaps wanted is a better word, but … it was only kitchen gossip, the whispers of washerwomen and stableboys …"

"I want to know. I never knew my father. I want to know everything about him. The good and … the rest."

Daenerys VII, A Dance with Dragons

 

As for her fears of being like her father, I think the fact that she is very self-critical and the fact that she is worried about being insane themselves suggest that the worry is misplaced, to the reader if not to herself. There are numerous examples of both traits, but the passage that best illustrates them simultaneously is this one:

"You have brought freedom as well," Missandei pointed out.

"Freedom to starve?" asked Dany sharply. "Freedom to die? Am I a dragon, or a harpy?" Am I mad? Do I have the taint?

"A dragon," Ser Barristan said with certainty. "Meereen is not Westeros, Your Grace."

Daenerys VI, A Storm of Swords

 

Daenerys fears the possibility of being like Aerys, because, after all, why would she not? But the very fact that she cares about this, and to such an extent, is a strong indication to the reader that she does not have the "taint" and will eventually realize that herself. (I would hope that book readers, at least, take no stock in the morally and logically bankrupt "we are our parents" argument.)

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