Message-ID: <2758@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Jul-83 01:59:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.2758
Posted: Sat Jul  9 01:59:00 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Jul-83 03:31:01 EDT
Lines: 28

From:  David A. Boulton 

I think you folks are really stretching for this one.  First, the
greek root AN- does mean 'not' or 'without', but the word ANA means
'up', or sometimes 'on top of', 'apiece', or 'again' (and probably
several others).  Secondly, 'kin' goes back through Anglo-Saxon to the
Gothic 'kinu' meaning 'related to' or 'produced'.  It is fairly rare 
that such completely unrelated roots end up in the same word (of course
Lucas is free to do whatever he wishes, but to my ear it just does not
sound "real").

How about -KIN as a diminutive suffix (from the greek -CHEN) ? Do any
of those possible combinations make sense?  I don't see any strong
contenders.

If you do take -KIN to be 'close relation' or 'to produce', then the
most sensible meaning is 'AGAIN-FATHER', echoing his previous 'shadow'
existence as Darth Vader 'DARK-FATHER'.  ANA- meaning 'again' is not
unknown in English, for example 'Anabaptist'.

Why does Anakin have to 'mean' something?  Lucas threw in some very
nice hidden jokes, but why do people try so hard to make everything
allegorical?  A lot of other interesting names and words in SW have
known derivations (e.g. R2D2 and Wookie), but the don't \symbolize/
anything.

	Let's hear it for Webster's 2nd Unabridged!
		-- Spam