Etymology of Ragnar Danneskjöld

[kiaer.ts]

I have a son I named Ragnar (in homage to AS).

He was born in Brazil, but he is both a Brazilian and an American citizen.

His mother came from an Arabian-descended Catholic and Muslim family. (That's the way some folks roll down there.) But she was adopted and her bloodline family came from the mix you get in Bahia.

The weird thing is that I imagined at the time you pronounced the name "RAY-nar." It sounded plausible and much more romantic that way so I went with it. Thus, he grew up with everyone pronouncing it that way. And that's that way he is called by everyone today.

Michael

The German cognate is Rainer and the English cognate is Rayner. In many positions, a /g/ after a vowel is weakened to a /y/ or a /w/ sound. It is likely that this is pronounced like Rawnar (Danish agn>awn) or Raynar (Norwegian ag> ay) unless the /g/ has retained its strength. (Unfortunately I cannot find a dictionary that specifies this on line.) Compare German "Regen, Wagon and Tag" to English rain, wain, and day/dawn.

If the /g/ in the name is not weakened, it would be pronounced like a /k/, so the name would be pronounced as if it were spelled "Racnar" with the Norwegian pronunciation, or "Oacnao" if you followed the Danish pronunciation, with the Danes swallowing their /r/s rather than trilling them.

Raynar is an eminently palatable solution.

Edited March 17, 2011 by Ted Keer

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Thank you, Ted.

You just resolved some personal issues I had (including with some other people).

It's nice to know I did not goof, even though I cannot take credit for having the knowledge back then. Sometimes a wide shot hits the goose.

Michael

[Reidy]

Re #25: Bette Midler reports that her mother, who named all her children after movie stars, named her after Bette Davis, thinking that the first name had only one syllable. The Divine One didn't find out otherwise until she was 19.

Re #24:

My point was just that Rand did use satirical names. If this was not clear before, I welcome the opportunity to make it so.

The standard biographical sources on Rand's husband are the same as for Rand herself:

- Biographies by Barbara Branden, Jennifer Burns and Anne Heller; memoirs by Nathaniel Branden and Leonard Peikoff;

- Letters and Journals;

- 100 Voices;

- An illustrated biography from the ARI folks;

- Paxton's documentary Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life and the spinoff book.

Once again, glad to help. Barbara Branden's book is probably the best source on the question you raised: what role did he play in her writing? Branden does not attribute such a large role to him as you do (or conjecture or wonder if he did or wonder if anybody knows more about or phrase it as you will). Burns mentions the Tesla theory in passing but doesn't spend time on it. If you have new information on either topic, the world will be in your debt if you publish it.

You asked earlier who I think Rand's à clef characters are. We had a brief thread on this over at Solo HQ (the ancestor of RoR) some years ago. To that list I'd add Danny Renahan in The Little Street, who, the Journals tell us, is modeled on a real murderer.

You might object that I engaged there in the no-evidence speculation that I object to here. In a few cases (such as Renahan) we have Rand's own word about her sources. In most of the others (e.g. Sullivan / Cameron) we have written evidence that she was aware of these figures. The weakest conjectures are probably von Stroheim (who is a second choice anyway) and Mc Pherson. That last at least passes the test of point-for-point similarity. She was a flashy, theatrical, fraudulent revival preacher in the LA of the 20s and 30s where Rand lived and where Ideal is set. Female revival preachers are rare (I did not say that there are no others to be found), and Rand wouldn't otherwise have had a point in making the character a woman. In the worst case, I clearly labeled these parallels "conjectures."

Finally, when you find yourself bringing up Ludlum (or the pseudo-Ludlum) in a literary conversation, something has gone seriously awry.

[dansullivan]

Finally, when you find yourself bringing up Ludlum (or the pseudo-Ludlum) in a literary conversation, something has gone seriously awry.

Well, something has certainly gone awry if you believe that I or anyone else on any thread I started brought up Ludlum. Who's Ludlum? Does it have to do with Allegheny Ludlum Steel?

With regard to Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart, I never brought up anybody. Rather, I clearly stated that I was researching the matter before I made any statements at all. However, if you imagined I was alluding to someone named "Ludlum," I would suggest that you get a little less righteous in condemning "speculation." I never heard of the person.

[Xray]

Writers who have no secondary meanings in mind when they choose names for their characters are hacks who never learned how to write. Part of what the phrase "good writer" means when applied to crafters of fiction is "writer who gets the maximum meaning out of all the words and names s/he chooses to employ."

JR

What "maximum meaning" was there for Rand to get out of a name like "Taggart"? (Of Scottish origin, the meaning is 'son of of the priest')?

Rand overdid it by giving many of her "evil" characters both ugly looks and silly names like e. g. "Mouch", "Tinky", "Cuffy Meigs", "Scudder". This unrefined and rather primitive technique of presentation - inner ugliness manifesting itself in outer ugliness - has a comical effect which I'm sure Rand did not intend, since there's not a scintilla of humor to be found anywhere in AS.

Edited March 17, 2011 by Xray

[caroljane]

Finally, when you find yourself bringing up Ludlum (or the pseudo-Ludlum) in a literary conversation, something has gone seriously awry.

Ludlum and Rand are both novelists, and the question of their relative literary merits doesn't disrail a conversation about the meanings and associations of character names in novels.

As you are aware, there is a body of critics who would remove Rand from the company of Swift, Bunyan etal and place her with the Ludlums and Margaret Mitchells.

[kiaer.ts]

I'm sure Rand did not intend [this], since there's not a scintilla of humor to be found anywhere in AS.

Remember that X-Ray is Tscherman, from the country that rejected both Monty Python and Seinfeld as unfunny. Rand actually wrote some of the funniest things I have ever read, including Francisco's speeches (oh, did I mix up my tenses) and "Now it's broken, and needs to be fixed" from The Fountainhead.

[dansullivan]

Ludlum and Rand are both novelists, and the question of their relative literary merits doesn't disrail a conversation about the meanings and associations of character names in novels.

As you are aware, there is a body of critics who would remove Rand from the company of Swift, Bunyan etal and place her with the Ludlums and Margaret Mitchells.

Actually, I wasn't aware of that. Did Ludlum write The Bourne Identity then? I was referring to the character's name, and hadn't even thought about the author. (I didn't even see the movie, just a few minutes of a sequel. As a meaningless novel, Shrugged is inferior to other novels that primarily just tell a story (Although Gone with the Wind had real meaning behind it.) I would put Shrugged in the same category as 1984 and Brave New World, which were not so great in terms of storytelling as they were statements about society.

[caroljane]

Ludlum and Rand are both novelists, and the question of their relative literary merits doesn't disrail a conversation about the meanings and associations of character names in novels.

As you are aware, there is a body of critics who would remove Rand from the company of Swift, Bunyan etal and place her with the Ludlums and Margaret Mitchells.

Actually, I wasn't aware of that. Did Ludlum write The Bourne Identity then? I was referring to the character's name, and hadn't even thought about the author. (I didn't even see the movie, just a few minutes of a sequel. As a meaningless novel, Shrugged is inferior to other novels that primarily just tell a story (Although Gone with the Wind had real meaning behind it.) I would put Shrugged in the same category as 1984 and Brave New World, which were not so great in terms of storytelling as they were statements about society.

I'll have to think about Huxley, but I can't agree about Orwell. His statement about society is as great as his ability to tell his story; they are seamlessly intertwined.

AS leaves the impression of a statement grafted onto a story, resulting in some novelistic awkwardness.

[ragnar]

As I wrote earlier, the name of Ayn Rand's pirate, Ragnar Danneskjöld, seems to have derived from the name of the Viking pirate, Ragnar Lodbrok, who is perhaps the only famous Ragnar in history. (He certainly dominated my Google search.) Dannesgeld was what the English and French called their tribute to him, the literal translation being "Danes Gold." I had speculated that Danneskjöld might be a scandanavian spelling of Dannesgeld, but I couldn't find an online translation of "skjöld."

So, I wrote to the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation. This is what they wrote back.

^{Hammar(e) means hammer and sköld is shield. There is no word "hammarsköld" in ordinary Swedish language (like goldsmith in English).}

Thus, Danneskjöld translates into "Dane's Shield." It offers an intersting symbolism, because Denmark has long maintained a culture of relative freedom and prosperity, despite being small in the era of great European powers, surrounded and easily plundered. It is also one of the most capitalistic and "business-friendly" of all European countries, despite having a rather large welfare state. (This suggests that taxation is less troublesome than meddlesome state intervention, but that is a tangent of a tangent.)

Rand had a flair for ironic symbolism, such as in the name Midas (Mulligan). Midas's "curse" of turning everything into gold is combined with "a Mulligan," which is slang for a do-over or second chance, alluding to a stereotypical habit of some Irishmen of being unsporting losers. For her character, however, the ability to make money was anything but a curse, and Midas Mulligan was not asking for a second chance, but rather was giving second chances to Rand's "looted" industrialists.

Ragnar Danneskjöld is a sort of Robin Hood in reverse, if you assume that Robin Hood was stealing rightful property and that Danneskjöld was returning rightful property. There are, of course, interpretations, even among non-socialists, that Robin Hood was taking what the Lords themselves had plundered from the people, and also (mostly socialistic) interpretations hostile to Rand's, that Ragnar's piracy was taking rightful property for his rich friends. If one such interpretation is right, RD and RH more of direct parallels than reverse parallels.

This symbolic naming question is a little different from the role model question, which would revolve around whether the actual behaviors of the Viking Ragnar Lodbrok suggested the behaviors of Ragnar Danneskjöld. Still, I think it's interesting.

I took the time to register simply because I'm a Rand fan, Scandinavian, stumbled upon this thread, and found it interesting. Only the fact that some of you take the time to look up the Ö when it should actually be transliterated to an Ø is a small aspect to take some pride in as I'm Swedish (only in Sweden do we use the Ö, Norway and Denmark use Ø, same pronunciation though). Since Ragnar is Norwegian, his name should be written Ragnar Danneskjøld if in native tongue, something that certain t-shirt makers should note ;)

On the possible symbolism I have nothing to add other than to confirm that the name means "Dane's Shield", which isn't odd or surprising considering the highly intertwined history of the Scandinavian peoples. But as with all names its original meaning is generally lost or rendered meaningless with time. Other than sounding like a very Scandinavian and viking-like name, my personal opinion is that it is just that; Ayn was born in the Baltic city of S:t Petersburg Russia, so she was more than likely very knowledgeable with the history of Scandinavia. Both Ragnar and Danneskjøld sounds like names chosen at random to myself as a native. Ragnar is a common name, so any references to vikings based on just Ragnar sound far-fetched. There are as many Ragnar's in viking history as there are in low-quality Scandinavian television history.

Is it too presumptions to assume that one of the most brilliant minds in the past millennium could just invent a name for a character in her novel?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ragnar,

Welcome to OL.

I agree about getting too complicated with Rand's fictional names. Barbara once told me that she and Nathaniel went looking through telephone books to come up with Branden. Since they were being mentored by Ayn Rand at the time, and since that is an old trick for writers, especially in Hollywood, it's reasonable to presume that Rand did stuff like that.

As I understand her writing method--reading aloud passages after they had been written to make sure the rhythm was right, I think she was more interested in the sound of the names than any hidden complicated symbolic meaning.

When Rand used symbolism or analogous meanings in names, from the things I see, she was much more direct and obvious. For example, Mouch (as is Wesley) is not too far off from mooch and slightly calls to mind mouse, which is a rather ignoble animal. You can even make a case for "ouch!" From doing poetry, I have developed a sense for this. I call it the whisper between the lines.

Back to Ragnar, I don't see any of that kind of obvious connection that leads to the "whisper." (Maybe ranger, but that's a bit of a stretch.) So in my own opinion, she thought the name sounded cool and went with it. It's colorful.

Nothing more than that.

Michael

[Reidy]

I second the notion that the name is a case in point of Freud's observation that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and that all these effortful mind-readings are for nought. Another reason to doubt such speculations is that they miss an important point of authorial psychology: when authors write à clef characters, they always change the name, and Rand is no exception. The fact that she named her character Ragnar is proof that she didn't model him on anyone named Ragnar.

Somewhere on the O-web I saw the suggestion that Kay Ludlow, Ragnar's wife, is patterned on Kate Hepburn, since Ludlow was once Hapburn's married name. Same argument applies.

[ragnar]

Ragnar,

Welcome to OL.

I agree about getting too complicated with Rand's fictional names. Barbara once told me that she and Nathaniel went looking through telephone books to come up with Branden. Since they were being mentored by Ayn Rand at the time, and since that is an old trick for writers, especially in Hollywood, it's reasonable to presume that Rand did stuff like that.

As I understand her writing method--reading aloud passages after they had been written to make sure the rhythm was right, I think she was more interested in the sound of the names than any hidden complicated symbolic meaning.

When Rand used symbolism or analogous meanings in names, from the things I see, she was much more direct and obvious. For example, Mouch (as is Wesley) is not too far off from mooch and slightly calls to mind mouse, which is a rather ignoble animal. You can even make a case for "ouch!" From doing poetry, I have developed a sense for this. I call it the whisper between the lines.

Back to Ragnar, I don't see any of that kind of obvious connection that leads to the "whisper." (Maybe ranger, but that's a bit of a stretch.) So in my own opinion, she thought the name sounded cool and went with it. It's colorful.

Nothing more than that.

Michael

Thanks for having me Michael! It's interesting what you say about the whisper between the lines. I actually pronounced Mouch as "mooch" in my head while reading AS without giving it a second thought. Another small side note on Ragnar, if it matters, is that the correct pronunciation in Norwegian/Swedish is 'Rang' as in "the church bell rang" but with the trilling 'R' (with the aforementioned exception of the Danes who "swallow" the R). But there is no 'k' sound in the name.

[ragnar]

I second the notion that the name is a case in point of Freud's observation that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and that all these effortful mind-readings are for nought. Another reason to doubt such speculations is that they miss an important point of authorial psychology: when authors write à clef characters, they always change the name, and Rand is no exception. The fact that she named her character Ragnar is proof that she didn't model him on anyone named Ragnar.

Somewhere on the O-web I saw the suggestion that Kay Ludlow, Ragnar's wife, is patterned on Kate Hepburn, since Ludlow was once Hapburn's married name. Same argument applies.

I wholeheartedly agree. The only thing that strikes me as a bit odd is that she chose a name that's so notoriously difficult to pronounce in English.

[Selene]

Welcome to OL Jesper:

Until I saw the movie on April 15th, I also "heard" the name in my mind as "mooch" and I have read Atlas Shrugged about thirty (30) times in my life.

In the movie, they pronounced it as rhyming with "couch."

I think you will find this a good place to post and a rewarding place to be part of.

How did you come to reading Ayn's Atlas Shrugged?

Are you a worker or a student?

Adam

[ragnar]

Welcome to OL Jesper:

Until I saw the movie on April 15th, I also "heard" the name in my mind as "mooch" and I have read Atlas Shrugged about thirty (30) times in my life.

In the movie, they pronounced it as rhyming with "couch."

I think you will find this a good place to post and a rewarding place to be part of.

How did you come to reading Ayn's Atlas Shrugged?

Are you a worker or a student?

Adam

Thanks Adam!

I'm sort of surprised they went with the "couch" pronunciation. I haven't seen the movie yet unfortunately, it probably won't go up here at all, so I'll have to wait for the DVD release...

Yes, I'm looking forward to exploring this place. I'm 30-something, self-employed and a relatively new Rand "disciple", although I was one already without knowing it I guess. In spite of having taken philosophy classes at university level I have never been introduced to objectivism (perhaps not surprising considering my university like so many others was a Lenin fan club). When I finally got around to reading Atlas Shrugged it was something of a revelation, and a sigh of relief.

It is also eerily close to today's situation, with a US suddenly leaning left and a EU that looks more like the Soviet union each day. I used to be a supporter of the European Union based on its original ideas of free trade and movement, but it has long since turned into a grotesque, blood-sucking parasite that only seems to exist to introduce yet more taxes, regulations and subsidies. Just as an example, farmers here are receiving subsidies to NOT produce or to grow crops just to plow them back into the ground, unused. And don't get me started on our cap-and-tax scheme and the whole climate disinformation campaign that our taxes pay for. I could go on, but I've already drifted way off topic ;)

[Selene]

Jesper:

The US government in its price support subsidies has been paying farmers not to grow food since at least the 1950's. We pay price supports to tobacco here. Ethanol subsidies which is pure theft is rampant in the US.

So, unfortunately, we aren't and haven't been much brighter than the EU.

Self employed as...?

Also, does the government of Sweden target you as a self employed individual or do they assist you?

Adam

[algernonsidney]

He was born in Brazil, but he is both a Brazilian and an American citizen.

You did your son a huge favor, Michael. Anyone who can get dual-citizenship should get it.

[algernonsidney]

I think this is a very interesting observation.

There are many similarities in the languages of Scandinvaia--Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, and Faorese.

[ragnar]

Jesper:

The US government in its price support subsidies has been paying farmers not to grow food since at least the 1950's. We pay price supports to tobacco here. Ethanol subsidies which is pure theft is rampant in the US.

So, unfortunately, we aren't and haven't been much brighter than the EU.

Self employed as...?

Also, does the government of Sweden target you as a self employed individual or do they assist you?

Adam

Adam,

I'm well aware of the ongoing ethanol scam on both sides of the Atlantic and elsewhere, but I had no idea that subsidies in other areas were as rampant in the US. Very sad. I have yet to see any form of subsidies that doesn't constitute legalized theft.

I build websites. The government here is currently right-leaning (which is a relative term, since the definition of right wing here is usually somewhere slightly to the left of most US Democrats).

Still, things have become somewhat better for businesses in most areas, but no entrepreneur can expect to keep more than half of their net profits. On top of that we have 6-25% VAT plus excise taxes on many products and numerous other small and large taxes. No matter how you look at it, they are bleeding you dry to pay for a largely dysfunctional welfare system. And just like the British we are also forced to pay for socialist-controlled propaganda television masquerading as "public service".

How about yourself? Student/working? How is your current government treating those who work? I have been following the Tea Party movement with keen interest and it sounds like a fresh breeze.

/Jesper

[Brant Gaede]

He was born in Brazil, but he is both a Brazilian and an American citizen.

You did your son a huge favor, Michael. Anyone who can get dual-citizenship should get it.

What favor? He has dual citizenship already.

--Brant