The Secrets of Amelia Merlin

Castle and City Names

Someone reminded me that I have to tell you guys what castle and city names each mean!!! So sorry I have not gotten around to it! I completely forgot but here they are!

Castle Ortus: Ortus means rising. The Dellisandro family rule here and they are very attached to their religion and constantly trying to better themselves.

City of Re'na: Re'na means peace, again this family tries to be as peaceful as possible something we have already seen in the novel.

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Stone Garden and Castle Rock: These hard and simple names are representative of the land and the family they are built around.

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Castle Ipsum(in High Valley): Ipsum comes from this dummy thing that you see when you're trying out new fonts. So the full thing is Lorem Ipsum etc etc etc. I chose this because it sounds really important and mysterious and interesting but really it's meaningless. The Gorodetsky family has always thought of themselves as highly intelligent and mysterious (Remember Brice?) but they never play a very big part in the grand scheme of things.

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Castle Canavar(in the city of Okamila): Canavar means wolf as does Okami. Both of these names show how the place will always be tied to the Merlin Family.

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City of Olopa: The Fiorvante's live here and if you remember a few things about them they are very lavish and full of lust and love. Olopa means lover of love, seductive charmer, love chaser.

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Castle Gadamere: This name has two parts, Gada which means value of truth, justice, discipline, being quick tempered. Mere comes from the Latin meaning "undiluted". These two words come together for the name of where the Lattantio's grow up. Think about Kenrick Lattantio who currently rules High Valley and you'll know what I mean.

Anguilla Desert: Anguilla is a Latin word for eel. Which makes me think of slippery which also really ties in with the Lattantio family.

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Castle Qyburn: This is the home of the Bellgarathon's. We haven't met them yet but when we do you're going to see how intelligent and slightly creepy they are. Their experiments are somewhat morally questionable which is why I named their castle after a character on Game of Thrones. If any of you have watched it, Qyburn replaces Pycell as Grand Maester of King's Landing and he is so creepy. So Qyburn is pretty much the epitome of the Bellgarathon family.

Islands of Imagi: Imagi is literally just a shortened version of imagination. I sort of split the word up and historically, the Islands of Imagi were actually the Nation of Imagi but then they joined the kingdom of Kalishterya after a pretty big war between the two. So you can see how Nation of Imagi is derived from imagination, it just shows how creative and slightly out of order these people are.

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Castle Machus: Machus has a few meanings. The first is warrior, the second is named after Telemachus who was Odysseus's son, if any of you have read the Odyssey it starts from Telemachus's point of view. He stays behind while his father is away and pretty much rules the kingdom. He values family and loyalty and we'll see a character in the Roscureaux family who really lives up to this. Lastly, Machus means do not shy away from light, this correlates with the name of the city.

So The Black City and Castle Machus both relate to the meaning of Roscureaux. So Roscureaux is taken from the word chiaroscuro which means the arrangement of light and dark together. It's an art term used to describe paintings. So firstly this family is very romantic and leads an artistic lifestyle. But more importantly they hold this core belief that there must be a balance in the world and that darkness merely makes the light more beautiful. Which is why these two names, of their castle and city come together to create their belief.

So I hope that was sort of helpful for you guys! It will give you an even greater insight into what is to come in the books and when we finally meet some of these characters you're really going to see how each of these factors plays out.