Important notice: the post is full of personal speculations !
✦✦✦ Cleanup Department
Belial is of course named after a term used for the Devil. Other meanings include "wickedness" or "worthlessness".
Beside being a common name in many countries, the name Maya can be related to the Maya or Mayan religion, which "relates to the illusion of reality". In Buddhism, the mother of Buddha is also named Maya.
Elbeth, or erubetto, might be based on Bethel, or El-Bethel, meaning "House of God", a city frequently mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps less likely so, it could be derived from Erbette, a variety of chard (similar to beets, the vegetable) mainly cultivated in Italy.
Securett is derived from the word "secret", which is more explicit considering the Japanese pronunciation of his name (shikyuretto). Rafe might either be derived from the Hebrew diacritic Rafe/Raphe (רָפֶה), meaning "weak", "limp". It might also rather come from the male given name Rafe, meaning "counsel of the wolf" or "wise wolf".
Haku is a Japanese word, which has multiple meanings depending on the characters used when writing it, but likely refers to "white" (白) in her case. It's worth noting that, despite being the sole character with a Japanese name of the cast, her name remains written in katakana, implying a foreign origin unrelated to its real world equivalent. It might additionally be derived from "kuhaku" (空白) meaning "blank". As a given name, it seems to be mainly thought as masculine.
Eckaran might potentially be derived from the French word "éclatant", meaning "dazzling", "bright", "glowing/shining", and which is often associated to white, such as a piece of clothing being "d'un blanc éclatant" (dazzingly, purely white), or from the verb "éclairant" (illuminating).
The Cardinal and father of Haku, Amii, has a feminine given name, uncommon variant of Amy. It is the English version of the French given name Aimée, translating to "beloved" (feminine form). More notably, Amy is also one name of a demon mentioned in several demonological grimoires.
✦✦✦ Magic Department
Arne is a male given name of Scandivanian origin, meaning "eagle". It is also the name of two figures in Greek mythology : the daughter of Aesolus Arne, and the princess Arne Sithonis (though, these stories don't seem to have been notable inspirations for Arnie). It's also the name of several cities or towns in multiple countries (UK, France, Gre+ece, US).
Enoch comes from the biblical figure of the same name. The name itself has several interpretations, such "your grace", "dedicated", or "follower", "inaugurated", and "wise" or "clever" from modern scholars. Apis is the name of several figures in Greek mythology, an Egyptian god, a city in Africa, or the genus of the honey bee.
Erzsebet is the Hungarian variant of the feminine given name Elizabeth, Erzsébet. Its meaning is "My God is an oath", and the name appears in the Bible along with being the name of various saints. Though not essentially related to his character, it might also be worth bringing up the most famous example of a personality sharing this name, being Erzsebet Báthory, or Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Ecsed, an Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer who became a part of national folklore.
Alternata is likely derivated from the verb "to alternate". It's also found in the scientific name for an harmful fungus kind, Alternaria alternata.
One detail that is easy to miss or forget is that, as mentioned by Erzsebet on his solo event on Day 4, members of the Alternata family are traditionally given names of the opposite gender than their own. Hence, Arne receiving a masculine name, and Erzsebet receiving a feminine one. Enoch is exempt from this rule as he is an adopted member of the group.
Aria Alternata, who is for now only briefly named on Happy Saint Zero's website and indirectly brought up by Erzsebet in HSSH a few times, seems to follow this tradition, as they should not be Erzsebet's sister but rather his younger brother, and also Arne's father, based on their name. Interestingly, Aria Alternata does sound very close to Alternaria alternata which I mentioned earlier...
I think it's interesting how the Eckaran family members seem to also follow this reversed gender naming tradition despite being opponents of the house of Alternata.
✦✦✦ Academics Department
Lavieen Rose, literally meaning "the life in pink", is named after the popular French song by Edith Piaf. It is also a saying meaning to "see the world through rose-colored glasses", in a rather idealized way, especially in a romantic context.
It might be worth noting that Lavieen, or "la vie en" ("the life in") doesn't work on its own as a sentence, as opposed to "Rose", which is a given name, a noun ("pink"), or the name of a flower. If, let's say, this name was split up as "Lavie" and "Enrose", it would have been more technically impartial. Not that it really matters in the end...
Assuming Rose is not one, Lavieen Rose doesn't seem to have a proper last name.
Evelynn Violeta has by far the most straightfoward name of the cast. Evelynn is an English given name, which is more commonly written as Evelyn, with other popular variants including Eveline, Evelyne, Eveleen, or Evelin. While it is nowadays regarded as feminine, it used to be unisex before at least ~1800. Violeta is a feminine given name coming from the name of the flowers Viola, or commonly refered to as violets, which like Evelyn, has multiple variants depending on country.
✦✦✦ Health Department
Grette's and Gregor's first names might have been taken from the similarly named characters Grete and Gregor from The Metamorphosis, albeit their stories don't really line up with those of the book. Both names can be traced as having German origins, in any case. There is also a little area of a French city called Grette, which is particularly funny to me.
Cornish is the name of a national minority and thus language in Cornwall, the most southwesterly part of the United Kingdom.
✦✦✦ Outsiders
Clione is named after the little sea angel species. Beside the name fitting her design, I suspect it might be some sort of a pun with the Japanese pronunciation of her name (Kurione), and her status as an ojou-sama. Kurionee-sama...?
Meanwhile, Claire is a common feminine French given name. It's also the feminine variant of the noun "clear", "bright". Myosotis refers to scorpion grasses or forget-me-nots flowers, which, like their name indicates, are associated with love and a wish for remembrance.
Related to the Clione & Claire name usage, while not brought up in the text, it might be assumed that Clione is her official given name, and Claire is one she assumes in casual informal settings only. As a result, only select characters refer to her as such (Belial and Maya, mainly).
Prompts : 1 - fallen angel (Maya) / 2 - coffee/tea (Grette) / 8 - rose (Clione, also the prompt I submitted) / 14 - psychosis (Belial) / 16 - book (Lavieen Rose) / 23 - fire (Gregor) / 24 - loneliness (Securett) / 25 - divine (Haku) / 29 - candle (Haku again)
My art school gave us an inktober assignment last month ! Fanart was allowed so I tried to fit in as much HSSH fanart as I could with the given prompts (which, fun fact, were all given by first year students). Bonus canon-divergent pages under the cut [part 2]
