The Temple of Dagon

They said Dracula was previously known as Dagon. How lame is it to take a name solely based on it's likeness?

Especially since the usage of the word even before Lovecraft does not really have anything to do with vampires.

It sounds like either someone just picked a random name and it's a coincidence, or someone just heard the name somewhere and thought it sounded good, without knowing much about it

But there are a lot of joes.. marks.. matts... so why not dagons anyway? I am calling the baby-name book place right now!

I thought Jesus Christ was Dagon?

Adrian,

Do they actually say the name Dagon in the film, or is it mentioned in the special features somewhere?

Just curious...

Take care,

Craig
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decadence wrote:I thought Jesus Christ was Dagon?

No, Dagon was the Philistine god of agriculture. However, Lovecraft's use of him as a fish god comes from the now-disproven theory that the name Dagon was actually the Hebrew form of his name (much as Yahweh/YHWH is Hebrew for Jehovah), in which case it could be translated as FIsh (Dag) of Sadness (On). Definately not Jesus the Christ.

Interesting info Jesus Prime. I had not actually heard that later bit. Do you have other pieces of info on name origins? It might make a good addition to the Mythos page

I was being sarcastic

And actually, it was Babylonian

Aleister wrote:Interesting info Jesus Prime. I had not actually heard that later bit. Do you have other pieces of info on name origins? It might make a good addition to the Mythos page

Pulled straight from S.T. Johi's annotations to 'Dagon'... But I'll see what I can do for you. I know that Dagon is the only direct borrowing from real life, but if I can find my copy of 'Call of Cthulhu and Other Wierd Stories', it explains a probable origin for Nyarlathotep. Also, all of Joshi's annotated compendiums seem to explain any human names used - most either come from graves lcated in the cemetary Lovecraft frequented (such as Professor Peaslee in 'The Shadow out of Time') or from his direct lineage (Many names are either simply lifted from ancestors, or share a first or surname. Most of the family mentioned in 'The Shunned House' are from Lovecraft's maternal lineage).

And Decadence, I'm not 100% sure about it, but I'm almost certain that Dagon was the god of the Philistines, as I looked up Judges (a book in the Old Testament of the Bible), and Samson is seized by the Philistines, taken to their temple to Dagon, and destroys it when he pushes the supporting pillars from their positions.

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