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Harry Potter: Golden Trio's Names Predict Their Future in the Most Unique Fashion

Harry Potter: Golden Trio's Names Predict Their Future in the Most Unique Fashion
Image credit: Warner Bros.

Who might have guessed: there’s yet another hidden meaning in Harry Potter names! Admittedly, the Golden Trio’s names hinted at their future from the start.

Summary:

  • The Golden Trio’s names all had an animal hidden inside: an otter for Potter, a weasel for Weasley, and an ermine for Hermione.
  • All these animals belong to one family, Mustelidae, which translates as “weasel” in Latin.
  • In the finale of Harry Potter, Harry and Hermione married into the “weasel” family of the Weasley.

There’s so much already said and written about the secret meaning of names in the Harry Potter franchise, but there’s always more to uncover. This time, we’re back to investigating the Golden Trio’s names and how they both covered their past and predicted their future. This will all make sense in a couple of minutes, we promise.

How Did the Golden Trio’s Names Describe Their Past?

The Golden Trio is a common name for Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, the main characters of the franchise. While Harry and Ronald were very common names even before the books, Hermione had its first surge of popularity since Ancient Greece thanks to J.K. Rowling — and it wasn’t a random choice.

Ron Weasley’s last name is an obvious variation of the word “weasel.” A pure-blooded wizard, Ron shared his last name with all members of his family.

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Harry Potter’s last name sounds like “otter” with an extra step. Being a half-blood, Harry shared his last name with his late magical family but not his Muggle relatives.

Hermione Granger’s first name is close to “ermine” but pronounced a bit differently. Being a Muggleborn, Hermione didn’t share her “animal” first name with her parents.

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At this point, this may sound like a convenient accident: after all, what’s the deal with all these weasels, otters, and ermines, you may ask? To answer that, let’s see how Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s names addressed their future, and you’ll understand.

How Did the Golden Trio’s Names Predict Their Future?

Even if there seemingly is a correlation between the Golden Trio’s “animal names” and their blood status (as the Death Eaters called it), that doesn’t explain where these animals came from. On a surface level, the only thing that unites weasels, otters, and ermines is their reasonably similar look, but that’s not true.

You see, all three of these animals biologically belong to the same family: Mustelidae. From Latin, Mustelidae means — you guessed it — “weasel.” This implies that Harry, Ron, and Hermione would belong to the same family, too, and that it would be the “weasel” family, meaning, of course, the Weasleys.

That’s exactly what happened!

When Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger got married, the newlywed wife took her husband’s name. Thus, Hermione became part of the Weasley family in more ways than one. In fact, thanks to her first name, she became a…“double weasel?”

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Anyway.

Harry Potter, in turn, married Ginny Weasley. Though in this case, it was Ginny who changed her last name, Harry still became part of the Weasley family through marriage. He, Hermione, and Ron were now all one big wholesome weasel family.

That’s quite a touching Mustelidae moment if you ask us: by their names, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all destined to become one family someday. As a nice bonus, their names also reflected their wizarding origins, and honestly, we have no idea how much time J.K. Rowling spent planning all of this. There are just too many meanings!

And we absolutely love finding them.