A member of the Covey-a group of traveling musical performers whose collective name refers to a flock of birds-Lucy, we are told, is named after the title character in a poem by William Wordsworth, and her last name is an alternate, Gaelic form of bard, the term for a singer or poet. Lucy Gray Baird: At least one name in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes resonates with the themes of both the novel and the Hunger Games trilogy. HBO Max Launched Its Rebrand in Just About the Grossest Way Possible Yellowjackets’ Season Finale Botched the Show’s Biggest Moment.Perhaps Lucky is Caesar’s father? Show business must run in that family, or perhaps in the Capitol, professions are determined more by birth than by merit or affinity. There’s likely no significance to him sharing a first name with the Roman philosopher known for espousing the materialist tenets of Epicureanism, but surely he is a relative of Caesar Flickerman, who hosts the Hunger Games during Katniss’ era.

Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman: The host of the 10 th Hunger Games is a “clownish” weatherman with an uncooperative, mangy parrot for his sidekick. Below, we close-read the names of the new novel’s main characters. Coriolanus believes, with most of the Capitol’s rulers, that he is inherently better than Sejanus because of his noble blood, a conviction cherished by the British aristocracy. But Ballad offers new insight into how the Capitol’s leading families viewed the rest of Panem, especially anyone “district,” like Coriolanus’ rich but lowborn friend, Sejanus. It’s well-known that the ancient Roman games in which condemned criminals were pitted against wild animals in the Colosseum to entertain the public inspired the Hunger Games. Among the novel’s minor characters are classmates of Coriolanus’ named Felix Ravinstill and Pliny Harrington. As a rule, the first names of Capitol residents in Ballad come from classical Greek and Roman culture, and the last names have a British flavor. Mostly set in the Capitol, Ballad serves up many new names from the elite of Panem, and offers some insight into Collins’ inspirations.įirst, some guiding principles. As other Slate contributors have noted, the names in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series are eye-catchingly peculiar and often contain hidden meanings. Collins’ new prequel to The Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the origin story of the trilogy’s villain, Coriolanus Snow, is no exception.

The ballad of songbird