Likely Literary Antecedents: Nabokov, Hugo, and Dickens
Having established that Ms. Rowling enjoys names of a certain construction — alliterative, with paired letters, and having internal resonances or echoes — before I get to why she chooses to do this and what it may mean, I want to make a short diversion to note that she isn’t the first author to do this. I think the sort of names she prefers to give her characters are reminiscent of at least three authors that she cares for: Nabokov, Hugo, and Dickens.
Ms. Rowling has said more than once that her three favorite writers are Jane Austen, Colette, and Vladimir Nabokov.
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