All 488 Norwegian Harry Potter Names EXPLAINED

Did you know that some translations of the Harry Potter books didn’t simply translate the work directly to their given languages, but also took great pains in adapting pun and joke names to make them funny for kids in different countries?

The man responsible for the Norwegian translations, Torstein Bugge Høverstad, has had a long career of translating novels to Norwegian, having translated everything from The Lord of the Rings to Shakespeare. His work on the Harry Potter books netted him several awards, and they might not have been quite as popular as they were in Norway if they had had a more direct bare-bones translation, like the Swedish one.

It always seemed strange to me as a kid whenever I heard Swedish people talking about Harry Potter. The Swedish and Norwegian languages are very similar to each other, to the point where we can easily communicate. But I was so used to the names in the Norwegian books being altered, it always seemed like the Swedes were kinda speaking half-English every time they mentioned Dumbledore or Hogwarts or whatever.

But I figured it could be fun to go through each and every name presented in the Norwegian version of Harry Potter, both changed and unchanged. And maybe, hopefully, I’ll be able to teach you some Norwegian along the way.

I’ll only be covering works translated by Torstein Bugge Høverstad, so any characters that were only named in the movies, on Rowling’s Pottermore website, or in any other supplemental or adaptational material, like any of the games, that were not entirely translated by Høverstad on his own, will not be on this list. This includes later added first names for characters who in the books are only ever referred to by their surnames, like a bunch of the Hogwarts professors.

I will also not be covering all the parents without first names but with surnames the exact same as their kids. I don’t really see the point of mentioning every Mr and Mrs Whatever that I can think of.

Watch the video above to hear pronounciations of the names.

Completely Unchanged

There are 71 names in the Norwegian version that are completely unchanged:

1. Harry Potter
2. Bane
3. Ronan
4. Norberta
5. Cho Chang
6. Fridwulfa
7. Karkus
8. Magorian
9. Nagini
10. Madam Rosmerta
11. Tom
12. Fleur Delacour
13. Gabrielle Delacour
14. Apolline Delacour
15. Antonin Dolohov
16. Nicolas Flamel
17. Perenelle Flamel
18. Gellert Grindelwald
19. Padma Patil
20. Parvati Patil
21. Agnes
22. Bob
23. Dennis
24. Gordon
25. Ted
26. Yvonne
27. Ali Bashir
28. Arnold
29. Janus Thickey
30. Mosag
31. Ragnok
32. Hermes
33. Baruffio
34. Agrippa
35. Merlin
36. Morgana
37. Arcus
38. Livius
39. Loxias
40. Madam Malkin
41. Dai Llewellyn
42. Honoria
43. Tiberius
44. Natalie McDonald
45. Bertrand de Pensées-Profondes
46. Lisette de Lapin
47. St Mungo
48. Pierre Bonaccord
49. Paracelsus
50. Cliodna
51. Cecilia
52. Marius
53. Odo
54. Olympe Maxime
55. Igor Karkaroff
56. Blaise Zabini
57. Albus Severus Potter
58. Voldemort

Plus nearly all players for both the Bulgarian and Irish Quidditch teams of the 1994 World Cup,

🇮🇪 Ireland	🇧🇬 Bulgaria
59. Mullet (Chaser)	66. Dimitrov (Chaser)
60. Moran (Chaser)	67. Ivanova (Chaser)
61. Troy (Chaser)	68. Levski (Chaser)
62. Connolly (Beater)	69. Volkov (Beater)
63. Quigley (Beater)	In ‘Directly Translated or Minor Changes’ section
64. Ryan (Keeper)	70. Zograf (Keeper)
65. Aidan Lynch (Seeker)	In ‘Directly Translated or Minor Changes’ section

Directly Translated and Minor Changes

60 of the names are also just one-to-one translations, or otherwise too similar to be of note.
So let’s just quickly get those out of the way too:

#	🇬🇧 English Names	🇳🇴 Norwegian Names
72.	Crookshanks	Skeivskank
73.	Hedwig	Hedvig
74.	Violet	Fiola
75.	The Bloody Baron	Blodbaronen
76.	Lily Potter	Lilly Potter
77.	Argus Filch	Argus Nask
78.	Amelia Bones	Amelia Beining
79.	Susan Bones	Susanne Beining
80.	Edgar Bones	Edgar Beining
81.	Remus Lupin	Remus Lupus
82.	Madam Pince	Madam Knipe
83	Madam Z. Nettles	Madam Z. Nesle
84.	Horace E. F. Slughorn	Horatsion E. F. Snilehorn
85.	Pomona Sprout	Pomona Stikling
86.	Professor Vector	Professor Vektor
87.	Winky	Blunka
88.	Lavender Brown	Lavendel Bruun
89.	Michael Corner	Mikkel Kroken
90.	Vincent Crabbe	Vincent Krabbe
91.	Marietta Edgecombe	Marietta Eggelkam
92.	Anthony Goldstein	Antonius Goldstein
93.	Bertie Bott	Bertram Butt
94.	Hokey	Hokla
95.	Leanne	Leanna
96.	The Great Humberto	Humberto den store
97.	Arabella Doreen Figg	Arabella Dora Figg
98.	Gregorovitch	Gregorovitsj
99.	Angelina Johnson	Angelika Johnson
100.	Viktor Krum	Viktor Krumm
101.	Vulchanov	Vulkanov
102.	Ladislaw Zamojski	Ladislav Zamojski
103.	Silvanus Kettleburn	Silvanus Kedelbrenn
104.	Ollivander	Olivander
105.	Helena Ravenclaw / The Grey Lady	Helena Ravnklo / Den grå dame
106.	Marcus Belby	Markus Bellby
107.	Damocles Belby	Damokles Bellby
108.	Martha	Marta
109.	Verity	Verita
110.	Roger Davies	Roger Davidsen
111.	Marcus Flint	Markus Flint
112.	Vicky Frobisher	Vikki Frobelius
113.	Olive Hornby	Olivia Horn
114.	Madam Marsh	Madam Marsk
115.	Octavius Pepper	Oktavius Pepper
116.	Poliakoff	Poliakov
117.	Mr Roberts	Herr Robertsen
118.	Scarpin	Skarpin
119.	Phyllida Spore	Fylida Spore
120.	Summers	Sommer
121.	Emeric Switch	Emmerik Skift
122.	Agatha Timms	Agatha Timm
123.	Cassandra Vablatsky	Kassandra Vablatsky
124.	Rose Zeller	Rosi Zeller
125.	Ragnuk the First	Ragnok den første
126.	Emeric the Evil	Emerik den onde
127.	Elfric the Eager	Elfrik den ivrige
128.	Urg the Unclean	Urg den ureine
129.	Uric the Oddball	Urik den einstøe
130.	Bodrod the Bearded	Skrogrok den skjeggete
131.	Warlock D.J. Prod	Seidmann D. J. Puff

Norwegian First Names – International Surnames

And then we have 15 common normal-sounding British names that have just been changed to other names that are easier to pronounce for Norwegian children.
These are mostly with first names common to Norway, along with mostly Scandinavian and German surnames.

#	🇬🇧 English Names	🇳🇴 Norwegian Names	Surname Nationality
132.	Mrs Norris	Fru Hansen	Denmark
133.	Gwenog Jones	Gwenog Hansen	Denmark
134.	Hestia Jones	Hestia Hansen	Denmark
135.	Hannah Abbott	Hanna Abom	Sweden
136.	Euan Abercrombie	Johan Abelin	Germany
137.	Stewart Ackerley	Stig Abelsen	Norway
138.	Owen Cauldwell	Odd Caspersen	Denmark
139.	Katie Bell	Katti Bull	England
140.	John Dawlish	John Dandel	France
141	Veronica Smethley	Veronika Flatland	Norway / United States
142.	Errol	Ulrik	–
143.	Derek	Didrik	–
144.	Dot	Trulte	–
145.	Kevin	Kurt	–
146.	Florence	Klara	–

Major and Interesting Changes

The remaining 342 translated names are much more interesting.

147. Hermione Granger is named Hermine Grang in Norwegian.
Grang is a traditional but now outdated Norwegian pronunciation of the Anglo-French word grand. There’s even a famous hotel in Oslo named the Grand Hotel, which a lot of older people especially just call Grang. So Grang brings to mind a sense of upper-class and properness, and Hermoine is definitely more upper-class than both her friends.

148. Poppy Pomfrey is named Pussi Pomfrit. Pussi is probably meant to be a reference to the Norwegian word pussig, meaning weird, and probably not a reference to the English word.. for cat.
Pomfri is one of the most used words for French Fries in Norway, being short for pommes frites. So, her full name means Weird French Fries, or possibly Puss In French Fries.

149. Miriam Strout is Miriam Strudel, keeping with the food theme for healers.

150. Gilbert Whimple is Gilbert Vimpel. While a whimple is a medieval form of female headcovering, the Norwegian vimpel is a pennon.

151. The Fat Lady is Den Trinne Damen, with trinn being a much more polite way of saying fat, more like portly.

152. Similarly, The Fat Friar is Den Trinne Munken. We don’t really have a word for friar in Norwegian, so he’s just a regular monk.

153. The Nick in Nesten-Hodeløse Nikk (Nearly Headless Nick) is spelled like our word for a nod, which is a pretty good pun considering.
His full name is also Sir Nicholas De Mimsy-Toppington instead of de Mimsy-Porpington.

154. Fang is Hogg, and is probably named that as a shortened version of hoggtenner, which is the Norwegian word for fangs. But just hogg by itself like that actually means chop, which I guess means you could translate hoggtenner as choppingteeth in English.

155. Firenze is Florens. Firenze is the Italian name of the Italian city of Florence, which we spell as Florens in Scandinavia. But we mostly use Firenze in Norway.

156. Fluffy is Nussi, which is kinda like kissy, which is cute.

157. While Pigwidgeon is an obscure English word that that can be used to describe a small or petty person or creature, Tullerusk means crazy and silly. Google Translate claims that tullerusk means bullshit, which is.. in itself.. bullshit.

158. Sir Cadogan is Ridder Callagal, ridder being the Norwegian word for knight, and the gal in Callagal referring to how he’s crazy.

159. Moaning Myrtle is Stønne-Stina, stønne being the Norwegian word for moaning and groaning, and Stina being a fairly normal Norwegian name that was switched in to have that same alliteration quality of the name as Moaning Myrtle has.

160. Sirius Black is Sirius Svaart, with his last name just being the Norwegian word for black but with an extra A. Two As in a row usually indicates an Å in Norwegian, especially when interacting with systems or people who are unfamiliar with the special letter, like when the famous footballer Håland changed his name to Haaland. Do that conversion with Svaart and you get Svårt, which is Swedish for difficult. Sirius Black did have a very difficult life after all, and you are meant to think he’s a scary bad man at first, so the double meaning of black and difficult could possibly have been intentional.

161. Phineas Nigellus Black is Finius Persilius Svaart. Persilius is an extremely uncommon surname in Indonesia, but it also reminds me of the Norwegian word persille, which means parsley. There’s also an Ancient Roman stain removal seller from the German comic book series Mosaik, where his name was a reference to the popular laundry detergent brand Persil.

162. Elladora Black is Elladora Svaart.

163. Regulus Arcturus Black is Regulus Arkturus Svaart, making his acronym R.A.S. instead of R.A.B., which is plot relevant. Ras means avalanche by the way, of both the snowy and rocky variety, which is probably not relevant actually.

164. Rupert Axebanger Brookstanton is Rupert Adelkamp Snoeffel. Since this was one of many possible R.A.Bs, or R.A.S’s in the Norwegian version, this name had to be changed to keep in line with that acronym. Adelkamp means Noble-Fight and a snøffel is a very uncommon word for a rude guy.

165. Rosalind Antigone Bungs is Rosalinde Antigone Snifs. Another R.A.B./R.A.S., with snifs being a combination of sniff, same as in English, and snufs, which means and is an onomatopoeia of snievel.

166. Aunt Petunia is still Petunia, but the Norwegian name for the Dursley family is Dumling, which sounds very similar to the word dumming, a very tame kindergarten insult which means stupid.

167. Uncle Vernon is Wiktor, – 168. Marjorie is Maggen,
and 169. Dudley is Dudleif, which isn’t really a real name, but follows an old naming convention from the Middle Ages which a lot of people now find silly, which involves sticking leif at the end of another name, the leif part specifically meaning descendant.
So technically, his full name means Dud-decendant Supid-person.

170. James Potter is renamed Jakob Potter, possibly just because that is a slightly more common name in Norway. But by that logic the books should have been called Harald Potter.

171. Professor Binns is Professor Kiste, which means casket, which is very fitting for the only ghost to teach at Hogwarts.

172. Terry Boot is Tom Blom. In real life, Tom Blom was a famous Dutch television and radio presenter, while Tom Blohm was a famous Norwegian football player.
But more importantly, Tom Blom is just fun to say.

173. Mandy Brocklehurst is Amanda Brunkeberg. Brunkeberg might be named after the Norwegian village of Brunkeberg in Telemark, or possibly the Battle of Brunkeberg near Stockholm, Sweden, which was part of the Dano-Swedish War of 1470 and ‘71.

174. Dobby is named Noldus, which is a synonym for idiot, and I have no idea what he did to deserve that.

175. Then we have Albus Dumbledore as Albus Humlesnurr, humle meaning bumblebee and snurr meaning spin, so basically bumblebeewhirl. Humle can also mean Hops, so that could be an additional reason why he’s so whirly.

In Dumbledore’s family, 176. Aberforth is Abriam Humlesnurr, – 177. Ariana is Ariana Humlesnurr, – 178. Kendra is Kendra Humlesnurr, and 179. Percival is Parsifal Humlesnurr.

180. Flitwick’s name, Pirrevimp, brings to mind the world spirrevipp, which is a playful name for a small person or animal.

181. Grubbly-Plank is Gnureplank, which means Rub Plank, but specifically in the way you would rub wood to sand it.

182. Godric Gryffindor is Gudrik Griffing, simply dropped the dor ending after the Norwegian word for griffin, simply Griff, and replaced it with a more Norwegian ing ending. His first name is also spelled more Norwegian.

183. Hagrid’s name is Gygrid. Gyger are female giants in Norse mythology, and rid is to ride.
So since the name Hagrid comes from being Hagridden, it’s actually even more fitting that Gygrid is named after what his father did to help conceive him.

184. Madam Hooch is named Hopp, Hopp being the Norwegian word for jump, as is in jumping on her broom. It could possibly be a reference to Hops in beer, going with the Hooch theme. But as mentioned, Hops is Humle in Norwegian, so I’m not sure.

185. Helga Hufflepuff is Helga Håsblås. Hås is a variation in the more common hes, which is the Norwegian word for hoarse, and blås is to blow. Så Håsblås means to blow hoarsly.

186. Gilderoy Lockhart is Gyldeprinz Gulmedal, which means GOLDENPRINCE GOLDMEDAL, although is spelled differently.

187. Ludo Bagman is Ludo Humbag, which is actually a pun on the English word Humbug, and should probably have been his name in the English version as well.
188. His brother Otto is still named Otto.

189. Cornelius Fudge is Kornelius Bloeuf, with Bloeuf being a soundalike to bløff, as in “to bluff”.

190. Arnold Peasgood is Arnold Pesegod, and goes from being good at peeing to being good at panting.

191. Cuthbert Mockridge becomes Herbert Hildering, hildring being the Norwegian word for Mirage.

192. Nymphadora Tonks is Nymfadora Dult, which is like a friendly little shove or nudge, often by elbowing someone’s arm.

Her mother is still 193. Andromeda (Tonks/Dult), and her father 194. Edward Tonks is Teodor Dult. The change from Edward to Teodor was probably because it’s not as known here in Norway that Ted or Teddy can be used as a nickname for Edward.

195. Ron Weasley is named Ronny Wiltersen, vilter meaning to be wild and lively. So the best way to translate Ronny Wiltersen back to English would probably be Ron Wildling.
In English, his middle name Bilius was probably given to him to honour his late uncle Bilius. But his Norwegian middle name Kolerius probably comes from the uncommonly used word kolerisk, meaning aggressive, impetuous and hot-blooded, which can often be a good description of Ron.

His large family consists of:

196. Arthur Weasley is Arthur Wiltersen

197. Molly Weasley is Molly Wiltersen

198. William Arthur ‘Bill’ Weasley is Rolf-Arthur ‘Rulle’ Wiltersen. Rulle means rolling.

199. Charles ‘Charlie’ Weasley is Kalle Wiltersen

200. Ginevra Molly ‘Ginny’ Weasley is Gunilla Molly ‘Gulla’ Wiltersen

201. Percy Weasley is Perry Wiltersen

202. Fred Weasley is Fred Wiltersen

203. George Weasley is Frank Wiltersen.

204. Aunt Muriel is Murre, which means to unhappily growl at something,

and 205. Uncle Bilius is Krank. Krank can mean the same as a bike crank in English, with the Norwegian word for bike being sykkel. Krank can also mean sick, mostly in German, but you can find the word in Norwegian dictionaries as well. But the much more common Norwegian word for sick is syk.

206. St Catchpole, the namesake of Ottery St Catchpole, the town where the Weasley family lives, is Sankt Veit. While Veit is a real surname, and Norwegian for a ditch or small passageway, it’s also a very common dialectal word for know. “Eg veit” meaning “I know”.
Additionally, the Ottery in the town name, referring to being located near the River Otter in Devon just like the real world Ottery St Mary, was translated as Ildering. Ilder meaning ferret. So in the Norwegian version of the books, I think it can be safe to assume that the Weasley family lives next to the Ferret River.

207. Kingsley Shacklebolt is Nestor Bindebolt. Nestor is in reference to the wise king Nestor from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. His last name means binding-bolt, which means pretty much the same as Shacklebolt.

208. Minerva McGonagall is changed to Minerva McSnurp. To be snurpete is to crumple your face into a snarky unhappy expression, so that is very fitting for Minerva.

209. Alastor Moody is Alastor Bister, which means dreadful and threatening. His nickname Madeye is just a direct translation to Galøye.

210. Professor Quirrell is Professor Krengle. While the name Quirrell may possibly be some sort of mix between quarrel and squirrel, Krengle is a play on krangle, which means to argue or quarrel.

211. Rowena Ravenclaw is Rasla Ravnklo. While Ravnklo is a direct translation from Ravenclaw, Rasla means to rustle, as in leaves or paper, perhaps referencing the Ravenclaws’ predisposition for book-smarts.

212. Snape is Slur, slu being the Norwegian word for cunning and lur meaning clever.

His father 213. Tobias Snape is Tobias Slur. And his mother 214. Eileen Prince is Ellinor Prinz, which is closer to the Norwegian spelling of prince, which was better for the reveal of Snape being The Half-Blood Prince, partly named after his mother.

215. Salazar Slytherin is Salazar Smygard, after smyger which is either the name for someone who sneaks or for a soundless fart.

I’m pretty confused as to how 216. Sibyll Trelawney became Rakel Rummelfiold. Changing the first name to a slightly more normal Norwegian name is one thing, but does Rummel refer to rumbling? Or perhaps to the author RJ Rummel. And is the fiol in the name because of the flower or instrument perhaps?
Either way, none of these options seem to fit the character. If anyone have any idea about this one, let me know down in the comments.

Also, 217. Cassandra Trelawney is Kassandra Rummelfiold.

218. Eleanor Branstone is Ellen Brannemann. While also an uncommon name in Germany, Barnnemann references to word brannmann (meaning fire man), which was the old gendered term for firefighters in Norway, which has since been replaced by the gender neutral brannkonstabel, which translates to fire constable.

219. Penelope Clearwater is Pernille Klarvang, which translates to clear-meadow.

220. Colin Creevey is Frodrik Fromm. While Fromm is a real surname Frodrik doesn’t seem to be a real name anywhere I could find at least. It does go well with his surname, though. I guess it could be a mix of the name Fredrik and the word Frodig, but that word doesn’t really describe him in my opinion.
From with one M also means something like good-hearted, which is a somewhat better fit at least.

221. Dennis Creevey is Dilton Fromm. Although Dilton ‘is’ a real name, I think it actually refers to the Norwegian word Dilte, which means to mindlessly follow someone around, which I feel fits quite well for both him ‘and’ his brother. Also, in combination with his last name you can sort of hear the phrase “to and from” in the name Dil-to-n Fromm.

222. Cedric Diggory is Fredrik Djervell, which is an old word for brave. And his father 223. Amos is renamed to Anton.

224. Seamus Finnigan becoming Jokum Finnimann is a wild change, but I have no idea what his name is supposed to mean. Joke-um Funny Man? Finni like the dialectal word for found? No idea.

Seamus’ cousin 225. Fergus is Fingus, presumably so that his full name could be Fingus Finnimann, although his surname is never actually stated.

226. Gregory Goyle’s Norwegian name is Grylius Gurgel. To Gryle can either mean to grumble or to shriek like a pig, while Gurgel literally means gargle.

227. Neville Longbottom is Nilus Langballe, which means long ball, but very specifically in the way you would refer to a testicle. Like, the Norwegian word for a ball is just ball, but if you say balle that is talking about a singular testicle, while baller is the plural for both balls and testicles.
Now his could be intended as being short for rumpeballer, ass-balls, which is what we call ass cheeks. But divorced from the knowledge that the character’s original name is Longbottom, nobody would ever consider that over just thinking that he has long testicles.

In the Longbottom family, 228. Alice is Alinda Langballe, – 229. Frank is still Frank, – 230. Augusta still Augusta, – 231. Enid is Agnes, – and 232. Algie is Albert Langballe.

233. Malcolm Baddock is Hugo Balleram. While Balleram is also a fairly uncommon name in Trinidad & Tobago, I wonder if the name Baddock made Høverstad think of the word bollock, and if that is the reason that he brings up balls yet again through the word balle. Ram can mean a few different things, but for this I think it was intended to mean a hard hit or strike. So, this name is basically a reference to a nutshot.

234. Luna Lovegood is Lulla Lunekjær. Since people at Hogwarts call Luna Looney, her name in Norwegian needed to be able to be mocked in a similar manner. Hence we have Lulla, which can be mocked as Skrulla, similarly referencing her seemingly crazy personality.
Lune means mood, but lun can also mean like warm and comfy. Kjær can mean loving or loved.

235. Xenophilius Lovegood is Xenofilius Lunekjær.

Malfoy have been changed to Malfang, which fits well with the snake imagery of Slytherin.
The first names of 236. Draco, – 237. Lucius, – 238. Narcissa, and 239. Abraxas are all intact.

240. Tom Marvolo Riddle is of course an anagram of «I am Lord Voldemort» but translating this phrase to «Jeg er Fyrst Voldemort» would destroy the anagram. So his name was changed to Tom Dredolo Venster which anagrams to «Voldemort den Store» or Voldemort The Great which I like much more anyway, even if his name no longer hints at a riddle to be solved.
This is probably the most changed name across all the different translations of the books, exactly because that anagram had to change with each language.
So we have Tom Elvis Jedusor in France, Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder in Sweden, Romeo G. Detlev Jr. in Denmark, Anton Morvol Hert in Greece, Tom Rowle Denem in Hungary, Trevor Delgome in Iceland, and so many more.

241. Tom Riddle Snr. of course has to be Tom Venster sr.

242. Sally-Anne Perks is Anna Klara Pomp. Pomp means the same in Norwegian as in English, a ceremonial or festival display of magnificence and splendour.

243. Lee Jordan is Laffen Styx. Laffen is an old nickname for Olaf and Olav.
Not sure if Styx is from the band or the river though.

244. Dean Thomas is Tommy Ding, which seems like he just picked names that sounded similar and then flipped them around.

245. Oliver Wood is Oliver Quist, with kvist being the Norwegian word for a stick or twig.

246. Griphook is Klotak, which means Claw Grip.

247. Kreacher is Krynkel, a portmanteau of Kryp and Ynkelig.
Kryp can be translated as creep, but often means something closer to creepy crawlies.
And ynkelig simply means pitiful.

248. Archie is Arkibald, which is also the Danish translation for the Archie comic book series, although not the Norwegian one.

249. Avery is Averson, which supposedly means “Son of Avery”, which is a very strange change.

250. Peeves is Gnav. Gnav is a traditional Danish and Norwegian social game that has been played with either special cards or wooden pieces with similar motifs. One of the pieces is The Fool or Narren in Norwegian. And that’s the roundabout connection to the character of Peeves.

251. Bartemius ‘Barty’ Crouch Jnr. is Bartemius ‘Bart’ Kroek jr., and 252. Bartemius ‘Barty’ Crouch Snr. is Bartemius ‘Bart’ Kroek sr. – Kroek is most likely taken directly from the Dutch word meaning crook. But Barty’s nickname is Bart in Norwegian, which means moustache.

253. Bellatrix Lestrange is called Bellatrix DeMons in Norwegian. The letters in DeMons spell out the English word demons. But the Norwegian word for demons is demoner.

Her husband 254. Rodolphus is Rodolfus, and his brother 255. Rabastan is Radamsus.

256. Peter Pettigrew is Petter Pittelpytt. Pittel either referring to the word Pitle, meaning to walk with tiny short steps, as a rat would, or to the word Pitteliten, which is a dialectal version of bitteliten, which means tiny. Pytt on the other hand is an interjection meant to convey indifference, and is possibly onomatopoeia for a spitting sound. Pytt!
His rat name, Scabbers, is as good as directly translated to Skorpus, which was also the name of a famous charioteer in Roman times.

257. Rita Skeeter is Rita Slita, and while slita is a variation on the word slite, meaning either to struggle or to wear out, the name is probably in reference to the word slitsom, meaning tiring.

258. Emmeline Vance is Emmelin Vals, vals being the Norwegian name for Waltz.

259. Bogrod is Grofnok. Grof could be grov, meaning course or rough. Nok means enough. Rough enough.

260. Buckbeak is Bukknebb, meaning ram-beak, changing the mammal part of his name from a male deer to a male sheep. But bukk should probably actually be translated to bow, since he likes bowing so much.
His assumed identity of Witherwings is translated to Vimmelving. Vimmel isn’t really a Norwegian word, but it does mean a large crowd of people in Swedish, and the Norwegian word vimle and svimmel both relates to being dizzy. But it could possibly just be that it sounded good.

261. Gornuk is Kornuk, korn with a K being the Norwegian spelling of corn. Weird joke, but I think that’s it.

262. Grawp is Gnurrg. Knurr is the Norwegian word for growl.

263. Travers is Trassel, which means an entangled mass, and is also the Swedish name for Tangled.

264. Trevor is Tristan, which is a real name. But trist also means sad, so you could read his name as Sad One.

265. Scabior is Skabber, so apparently, he stole the English name for Ron’s rat. Skabb is the Norwegian name for scabies, so skabber would probably be the skin sores you get from scabies.

266. Hepzibah Smith is Hespetra Smutt. A Hespetre is both the Norwegian word for a textile swift and an insult for a difficult woman, on par with the English bitch. And Hespetre is mixed with the real Norwegian name Petra. Smutt is a seldom used word that have now mostly evolved into smett, which both means to slip, as in in and out of small places.

267. Zacharias Smith is Sakarias Smutt.

268. Bathilda Bagshot is Bathilda Bang, exchanging her surname with the sound a “Bagshot” would presumably make, which I find kinda funny.

269. Millicent Bulstrode is Milly Bylling. Bylling could mean either, or be a mix of, the English word bullying and the Norwegian word bylle, which means a boil.

270. Charity Burbage is Carita Borre. Borre is the Norwegian name for the plant burdock, which also inspired the word borrelås, which means burdock lock, and is the Norwegian word for velcro. 

271. Frank Bryce is Frank Brask. Brask, which means to be loud and boorish, is most often used in the combination Med Brask og Bram, with brask and bram, where bram means to be boastful.

272. Alecto Carrow is Alekto Misfall. Misfall is the same as a mishap or accident. In Swedish, missfall is the same as a miscarriage.

Her brother 273. Amycus is Argel Misfall. The word Arg can mean malicious, horrible and angry.

274. Reginald Cattermole is Mons Mulevarp. Mulevarp is almost identical to muldvarp, which means mole.

275. Mary Elizabeth Cattermole is Marie Elisabet Mulevarp.

276. Ellie Cattermole is Elly Mulevarp.

277. Alfred Cattermole is Alfred Mulevarp.

278. Maisie Cattermole is Maiken Mulevarp.

279. Dirk Cresswell is Dirik Mosegrom. Mose means Moss. Grom can mean something or someone great and highly regarded. But there is also a meaning linked to the word grim, which are a type of supernatural creatures.

280. Dedalus Diggle is Dedalus Dølg. Dølg is an uncommon word which means to hide or keep secret, which is fitting for a member of the Order of the Phoenix.

281. Armando Dippet is Armando Duppel. There’s a few possiblities as what Duppel is referring to but given his advanced age of over 200 years I’m betting on the word duppe, which means to nod off.

282. Elphias Doge is Elfias Dogger, which might tell you something about how he spends his free time, but is probably in reference to the word dugger, meaning to fog up.

Mrs. Figg’s cat Mr Tibbles changed names between books from 283. Snurf to 284. Lusken. There is nothing in the text to indicate that these are the same cat in the Norwegian version, so I’m counting them seperately.
Snurf is possibly a mix between snufs, which means sniff, and smurf.
Lusken is a fairly common cat name in Norway and comes from the word luske, which means to sneak.

Mrs. Figg’s other cats only have one name each.
285. Snowy is Snøhvit, which means Snow White. 286. Mr Paws is Potulf, with pot meaning paw and Ulf being a Nordic name that derives from the Old Norse word for wolf. And 287. Tufty is Svins, which means saunter, which cats do quite a bit of.

288. Justin Finch-Fletchley is Julius Finkenfjær, which means Finch-Feather.

289. Mundungus Fletcher is Mundungus Styrfeder. A bit unsure about this one. Styr can mean something like control or operate, but it can also mean something closer to hullabaloo and fuss. Feder is father in Icelandic, but it is also feather in German, which would fit well because the feathers of an arrow is called the fletching. Put them together and you sort of get the meaning of someone who is working on an arrow, which is what a Fletcher does.
There are so many dialects in Norway that while this felt very unintuitive to me, but someone else might have gotten this immediately.
His nickname Dyng means heap, and is mostly used as part of the word søppeldynge, meaning trash heap.

290. Benjy Fenwick is Benjamin Fylling, which means filling. Or fill, as in landfill with the word søppelfylling.

291. Marvolo Gaunt is Dredolo Mørch. His first name had to change to fit with the translated Voldemort anagram, since Tom was partially named after him, and the word mørk means dark in Norwegian.

292. Merope Gaunt is Miseria Mørch, miseria being Spanish for misery.

293. Morfin Gaunt is Morfus Mørch. Both these first names bring to mind morphing, although there could possibly be some other reasoning here as I don’t see how that’s relevant to this character.

294. Daphne Greengrass is Dafnia Grønbek. One of the intricacies of the Norwegian language is that we have two official written languages. Bokmål, which I’ll translate to Book Speech, and Nynorsk, meaning New Norwegian. I may get into the interesting history behind that another time, but I’m bringing it up now because Grøn with that spelling means green in New Norwegian, but the almost 90% of Norwegians who write in Book Speech would spell it with two Ns. Bek is pitch, the byproduct of tar distillation, or possibly bekk with two Ks, meaning a stream.

295. Fenrir Greyback is Fenris Vargar. The Fenris-wolf, or the Fenrir-wolf in English for some reason, is a giant world-ending wolf from Norse mythology, and one of Loki’s children. Vargar means wolves in New Norwegian. And the same in Book Speech, except it’s varger, and the word ulver is much more commonly used.

296. Mafalda Hopkirk is Mafalda Hopstok. The word hoppestokk consists of hoppe, which means jumping, and stokk, which means cane. But hoppestokk is actually the Norwegian name for a Pogo Stick.

297. Bertha Jorkins is Berta Flurp. I think this is literally just a funny sound.

298. Walden Macnair is Wolmer McKnife. Not in Norwegian you understand, just McKNIFE in English. Absolutely perfect.
Volme with a V means to pour out or whirl up. But I would have actually preferred it if his first name had stayed as Walden, because valden with a V means The Violence in certain parts of Norway, being spelled with an O instead of an A in the rest of the country. Having his name be The Violence McKnife would have been the only way to improve this name.

299. Griselda Marchbanks is Grinella Marsbom. Grin can be used like the English grin, but usually means cry. Mars is both the planet and the month of March, and bom could either mean boom, miss or bar gate. Not sure what he was going for here.

300. Ernie Macmillan is Ernst Maltmann, changing one brand of Scotch for another.

301. Eloise Midgen is Elise Knotten. Knotter is Norwegian for bumps, usually in relation to objects like the underside of football shoes. But it fits Eloise quite well, since she has a recurring pimple problem. EN endings in Norwegian words is the same as putting a THE at the start of an English word, so her name is literally Elise the Bump.

302. Cormac McLaggen is Colon McMerk. Even for someone as shitty as Cormac, renaming someone to colon is pretty harsh, even though the word is usually spelled with a K in Norwegian. But the Merk in McMerk on the other hand just means notice or mark.

303. Graham Montague is Goffen Røsli. Røslig means big and muscular.

304. Theodore Nott is Teodor Nokk. Nokk is an arrow nock, but drop a K and you get enough.

305. Bob Ogden is Bostolf Okkermann. Bost may be related to the word bust, meaning bristle (the short stiff hair on an animal or brush). The word bustete then came to mean shaggy. Olf is a variation on Ulf, meaning wolf. So, shaggy wolf.
While Okkermann is also just a slight variation on the real Netherland surname of Okkerman (with one N), to okke or akke also means to whine and complain in Norwegian, usually involving making the sounds okk or akk. And mann is the Norwegian spelling of man. So, Shaggy-Wolf Complaining-Man.

His possible relative 306. Tiberius Ogden is Tiberius Okkermann.

307. Pansy Parkinson is Petrea Parkasen. Petrea is a genus of evergreen flowering vines native to the tropical Americas. Parkasen means The Parka, as in the hooded winter coat.

308. Sturgis Podmore is Styrian Pommer, whose name seems to be made up of two areas from mainland Europe. A Styrian would be someone from the Austrian state Styria, and a Pommer or Pomeranian would be someone from Pomerania, the historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, which is split between Poland and Germany.
I swear I’ve also heard styrian been used for someone who is stressing about, coming from the word styre, not connected to Styria at all. But I could find no examples of this online or in any dictionary. Let me know if I’m crazy or what.

309. Apollyon Pringle is Apoleon Pling, which means ding. If you were wondering, we do have Pringles in Norway.

310. Demelza Robins is Distel Robertson. Distel is German for thistle, which is tistel in Norwegian.

311. Augustus Rookwood is Augustus Rottenroll, his surname being a mix of the word rotten, meaning The Rat, and the phrase Rock ‘n’ roll.

312. Thorfinn Rowle is Torfinn Røwle. Vrøvle means to talk nonsense. But it also seems like Høverstad just liked adding the letter Ø to Death Eater names, probably because it’s in the word død, the Norwegian word for death.

Along those lines, 313. Albert Runcorn is Albert Mortmann. Mort is of course death in French. And more specifically, he’s a Mort Man. One of VoldeMORT’s men in the Ministry.

314. Rufus Scrimgeour is Rufus Grimst. Grim means about the same in Norwegian as in English. Angry, ugly and/or unpleasant. An ST-ending indicates being the most of something, so Rufus is the grimmest.

Brutus Scrimgeour on the other hand is still just named Brutus Scrimgeour. This can be explained by him being a minor character from the Quidditch Through the Ages tie-in book, which was released two years prior to The Order of the Phoenix, in which Rufus was introduced. Even though Torstein Bugge Høverstad also translated Quidditch Through the Ages, he did not change any of the names in that book, as it was supposed to be more of a non-fiction British sports book, just keeping the original British names fit that much more. Also, I’m sure he didn’t have as much time to finish this little side-book as he had with the main ones, so he just kept the same names.

This with the exception of 315. Sparky, the mascot of the New Zealand Quidditch team the Moutohora Macaws, being renamed Brann. Sparky was probably the exception because his name is basically just a word. Brann means fire, but is also the name of a famous Norwegian football team from Bergen.

Anyway, it seems pointless to include any more characters from this book since you can just look up their British names and they will be the same as the ones in the Norwegian version, so I will not be counting most of them (including Brutus) towards the total of this list. The only exceptions being Sparky, since his name actually changed, and Dai Llewellyn (that was already counted as one of the completely unchanged names at the start of this list), because a ward at St Mungo’s hospital was named after him in Order of the Phoenix.

316. Newt Scamander is Salamander Fisle. Salamander means the same in both languages and is what both Newt and Scamander refer to anyway. But Fisle comes from the Norwegian word firfisle, which means lizard. So, his full name is Salamander Lizard.

His wife 317. Porpentina Scamander is Porpentina Fisle.

For the same reason as with Quidditch Through the Ages, I will not be including any more characters mentioned in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them book. The only reason Porpentina made it to the list is because her last name had to be changed due to Newt Scamander being mentioned and translated in one of the main books, and Janus Thickey made it on to the list earlier because Rowling later named a hospital ward after him in Order of the Phoenix.

318. Beedle the Bard is Skalden Skurre. Skald is an Old Norse word for poet, and skurrer is to sound disharmonic or wrong.

Høverstad also translated The Tales of Beedle the Bard, but I have decided against counting any of the in-world fictional characters of that book. I ‘can’ tell you that Babbitty Rabbitty is called Klumpedumpe, Grumble the Grubby Goat is pretty closely translated to Grufsegeita Grumle, Asha, Altheda and Amata’s names are spelled Asja, Alteda and Amata, Wee Willykins is Lille Villivuss, Sabre is Knurr and Sir Luckless is directly translated to Ridder Lykkeløs.

But there ‘are’ some in-world real people introduced in this book.

319. Beatrix Bloxam is Beatrix Bloksbjerg, from the expression “Dra til Blokksberg” or “Go to Blokksberg”, which means something like “Go away, I don’t believe you.” It’s very similar, although not entirely the same, as the English “Go to hell!”, which we also have a direct translation of: “Dra til helvete!”
Blokksberg is in reference to Brocken in Germany, sometimes called Blocksberg, which was said to be a meeting ground for witches.

320. Brutus Malfoy is Brutus Malfang.

321. Herbert Beery is Herbert Øllers.

Beatrix Bloxam’s uncle 322. Nobby is Nuffen.

And the titular brothers in The Tale of the Three Brothers are of course based on some in-world historical characters.

323. Antioch Peverell is Antiokus Peffermell. I think the name Peffermell might be a reference to Pimpernell, as in The Scarlett Pimpernell, another main character of a supposedly fictional work. In any case, peffer seems to be an alternative spelling of the German word pfeffer, meaning pepper, but I’m not sure if it’s currently in use or what.

324. Cadmus Peverell is Kadmon Peffermell. Kadmon means primordial in Hebrew.

325. Ignotus Peverell is Dunkert Peffermell. Dunkert is a mix of the now very uncommon first name Dankert, most used in Bergen and the Northernmost parts of Norway, and possibly the word dunk, which can mean thump or bump.

Henry VI of England is also mentioned in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, but it feels wrong to count him for this list. But it is interesting that he has been changed from Henry the Sixth to Henrik the 4th. Henrik is simply what we call all the King Henry’s in Norway for some reason that might be interesting to look into some day. But changing him to his grandfather was probably just due to placing the Roman numeral I on the left side of numeral V instead of on the right.

Voldemort’s daughter 326. Delphini Riddle from the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (which was also translated by Torstein Bugge Høverstad) is Delfini Venster. Delfin is the Norwegian word for dolphin, but I think this is just an unintended consequence of trying to spell the name more Norwegian.

Malfoy’s wife 327. Astoria Malfoy, who was also first named in that play, is named Astoria Malfang.

328. Stan Shunpike is Svinton Slipprush, mostly so that his nickname could be Svint. “Fortere enn svint”, or “Faster than svint” is a saying that means incredibly fast. Svint comes from the Old Norse word svinnr, which means fast, so the saying just means faster than fast. But as far as I’m aware, svint is never actually used outside of that sentence.
Slipprush seems to just be an English description of the Knight Bus on which he is employed, slipping in and out of traffic and rushing to its destinations.

329. Aurora Sinistra is Aurora Schkummel. Skummel means scary.

330. Alicia Spinnet is Alliken Spunt. The English spinnet is a person or device that spins yarn or thread, so spunt is probably meant to be short for spunnet, a past tense of spin.

331. Pius Thicknesse is Trivius Fjoth-Fjohne. Trivius probably comes from trivelig, meaning pleasant. Fjott means doofus. Fjohne probably comes from fjon, which means something close to a speck, wisp or fluff.

332. Wilkie Twycross is Wilfram Tvikrok, which basically means hunch. Someone who is tvikrokete is severely hunched forward.

333. Romilda Vane is Romilda Vamm. A vam is a small valley, cove or nook surrounded by ridges, so it’s barely visible.

334. Corban Yaxley is Jugullus Øxodd. He is only called Jugullus in the second chapter of the Half-Blood Prince and is never identified by name in the rest of that book. And for the entirety of The Deathly Hallows he is only ever identified as Øxodd, which is such a cool name for this menacing high-ranking Death Eater. It also incorporates the letter Ø, which is one of three special letters in the Norwegian alphabet. Æ, Ø and Å. The name sounds a bit like the word øksehode, which means ax head, which fits his personality perfectly, and it sounds a bit similar to Yaxley too.
Jugullus on the other hand probably comes from juge, one of the many Norwegian dialectal words for lying. While that also fits ok for a Death Eater in hiding, I feel like Yaxley is generally more direct and blunt in his approach, which may be the reason Høverstad moved away from calling him that, if he even remembered that minor instance of that name being used previously.

The Evans family, which spawned Lily Potter and Petunia Dursley, is named Eving, possibly after the Dortmund city borough in Germany, but maybe more likely after the Norwegian word eving, meaning to doubt.
There’s a tiny possibly of the name being based on the word evig, meaning forever. An eving would then be someone who is forever, even though I don’t think that is an actual word in any dictionary at least.
It has never been confirmed by Rowling, even as fans have supposedly hounded her for an answer, that one of Dudley Dursley’s victims named Mark Evans is of the same Evans family as Lily and Petunia. It is curious then that the Norwegian version of 335. Mark Evans is named Markus Eving.

336. Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore is Sir Parsifal Halleskum-Hestenfies. Parsifal comes from the Wagner music drama. Halleskum might, MIGHT, be haleskum, meaning tail foam. And I only believe that is a possibility because Hestenfies is ‘definitely’ hestefjes, meaning horse-face. So, you know, Tail-Foam Horse-Face.

337. Alphard is Alfar. Alfar are a supernatural race from Norse mythology, and the Old Norse word for elves, possibly part of the inspiration for Tolkiens elves from The Lord of the Rings.

338. Basil is Basse. Calling someone Basse is very similar to calling someone Teddy or Teddy Bear. It’s someone big, kind and cuddly. Probably comes from the word bamse, which means a male bear, with Bjørn being the word for bears in general.

339. Bozo is Bums, which is probably in reference to the Norwegian word boms, which in English means bum, as in a vagrant. Not crazy about the comparison between a clown and beggars, but oh well.

340. Everard is Kronian, which may be linked to the word kronikk, meaning chronicle, as Everard reports to Dumbledore about what happens near his various portraits hanging in important Wizarding institutions.

341. Malcolm is Marlon, which is not at all a common name in Norway, so it’s almost certainly a reference to Marlon Brando. Who was also a bit of a bully, I suppose.

342. Bertram Aubrey is Bertram Aule. Aule is a dialectal word that can mean swarm, teem and even pour. Generally large quantities of something moving around.

343. Lancelot is Larian. Larian is a name which means ‘crowned with laurel’, and laurel wreaths are symbolic for medical care, so that’s perfect for a St Mungo’s healer.

344. Millicent Bagnold is Fridoline Barnald. Millicent is a type of rose, and Fridoline is a type of rhododendron. The only thing I could find for Barnald is the Icelandic word for childhood, literally translated as Child Age. Icelandic is very close to how they used to speak in Norway during the Viking Age, so that probably used to be a word here too.
There’s also a Bergen creature called Barnald from Bergen Town in the 2020 Trolls: TrollsTopia series. As a Bergenser myself, I am deeply offended.

345. Amy Benson is Anna Baffel. While a baffel is the same as a baffle, the name probably comes from the word to baffle, which while not used much in Norway, means the same as the English baffle. So, you could perhaps say that a baffel is someone who has been baffled. Or maybe it’s just the Norwegian word for waffle, vaffel, but with a B.

346. Dennis Bishop is Dennis Bisp, which is short for biskop, which is the Norwegian word for bishop.

347. Miles Bletchley is Malton Blaehr. Malton comes from the English surname and location, and is generally not a given name in real life. A blær or blære is someone with an inflated ego, coming from the fact that blære also means bladder in Norwegian.

348. Stubby Boardman is Knotten Borkmann. A knott can mean knob or gnat, but is probably meant to be studs concidering the original name is stubby. Borkmann is probably a reference to John Gabriel Borkman, a play by Henrik Ibsen.

349. Melinda Bobbin is Melinda Bobbel, which is probably in reference to bobble, and not the Norwegian bobble which means bubble, but bobble as in bobbleheads.

350. Broderick Bode is Olmar Omen. To be olm means to be angry and seething. Omen means the same as in English.

351. Borgin is Borgia, after the famous Spanish noble family.

352. Caractacus Burke is Carolimagnus Brust. Carolimagnus is in reference to Karlamagnús which was the Norse name for Charlemagne, who was called Carolus Magnus in Latin. Brust could be past tense for bruse, which means to fizz or fizzle. Or maybe it’s a soundalike to bryst, which means chest, as in the part of the body.

353. Bradley is Bramling, which may be named after the Hamlet in Kent. There’s also a type of hops named Bramling Cross, which I feel might be relevant because of Humlesnurr being named after hops.

354. Cadwallader is Cantarell. A kantarell is a delicious type of mushroom known as a Chanterelle or girolle in English.

355. Eddie Carmichael is Edin Karmylius. Edin is a not at all common man’s name which I am pretty sure Høverstad got from the Norwegian author Edin Holme. Karmylius may be in reference to the extremely uncommon names Karmy, Karmyl or Karmelius. But I feel like I’m possibly missing a hidden meaning here.

356. Herbert Chorley is Herbert Fumlie. The only idea I have for Fumlie is the word fumle, meaning fumble. But that seems maybe like a stretch.

357. Cole is Kolle. A Kolle means something without growths on it, usually used for either a hillock without much vegetation or for the female members of animal types where the males grow horns.

358. Ritchie Coote is Rikard Clang, as in the sound, although the word Klang is actually spelled with a K in Norwegian.

359. Elfrida Cragg is Elfrida Kragg. It seems very likely that Elfrida Cragg is a misspelling of Elfrida Clagg, since Elfrida Cragg is mentioned in the Order of the Phoenix as having a portrait hanging in the Ministry of Magic, and Elfrida Clagg would certainly be someone worthy of such an honor. In which case, the Norwegian translation would probably have been Klagg instead or Kragg. But since we are only counting characters in the main Harry Potter books for this list, Cragg is actually the correct spelling since only Cragg is mentioned in the main books.

360. Croaker is Kverker. To kverke something is to crush it, but to kverke someone is to kill them, so it’s that definition of croaking that was translated.

361. Doris Crockford is Doris Krukkebekk, which is very close to be directly translated as krukke is jar and bekk is stream.

362. Barnabas Cuffe is Barrabas Kjenning. A kjenning is someone you or someone else knows, which is very on the nose concidering this of the many people Slughorn knows.

363. Hector Dagworth-Granger is Hektor Dobermann-Grang, like the dog.

364. Caradoc Dearborn is Kasper Dilligant, which might just be meant to be the English word diligent, because the closest word we have in Norwegian is delegant, which is the same as the English word.

365. Bole is Bang and 366. Derrick is Drønne, meaning this pair of Slytherin Quidditch Beaters are basically called Bang and Rumble.

367. Dilys Derwent is Dilly Diddeli, and diddelidi is kinda like a common Norwegian scat line.

368. Harold Dingle is Harbal Dingel. Avoiding the obvious pick of Harald, a hårball is the same as a hairball. In combination with Dingel that brings to mind a dangling hairball, which seems unsavoury.

369. Emma Dobbs is Emma Grull. Not sure if Grull relates to grill, gull which means gold, or gru which means dread. Or none of the above!

370. Mary Dorkins is Marte Dørken. Dørken means the floor, particularely in rooms in ships and trains. Usually used when describing someone falling hard to the floor. The more common word for floor is gulv.

371. Bungy is Yndi. Yndig can mean cute, pretty, graceful, adorable, and other similar synonyms.

372. Ambrosius Flume is Ambrosius Flomme, which means to flow heavily.

373. Florean Fortescue is Florian Funkel, which is probably from the German word funkel, meaning sparkling.

374. Dexter Fortescue is Dalrian Funkel

375. Gibbon is Gissik. Unsure about this, but gissik translates to the word “nothing” in the Basque language. It’s also close to the Norwegian word Gisse, which is a common nickname for pigs, which fits with the animal connection to his original name Gibbon.

376. Golpalott is Golpomkapp. Om kapp generally means some sort of race. Kjøre om kapp, spise om kapp, rydde om kapp, gå om kapp. Anything. Om kapp seems to have its origin in the Old Norse kappestrid, meaning cape battle, generally meaning a competition. Om means about, so the phrase just means competition about walking, or competition about driving, and so on. But in modern times, the phrase is completely linked with speed.
The golp in each name is meant to mean gulp, which is fitting for a potioneer, and it means the full meaning of the Norwegian name is Gulping Race.

377. Miranda Goshawk is Miranda Hønshøøk, which is an international mispelling of the word hønshøk, also known as hønsehauk, which is the Norwegian names for Eurasian goshawks. Høns means hens, so we think of goshawks as taking hens instead of geese in Norway.

378. Gladys Gudgeon is Agna Fjolles. The word fjollete means silly, usually to describe a person. This can be used both positively and negatively.

379. Ciceron Harkiss is Siseron Krummeltap. Krumme means to bend something, usually your back. Tap means loss. Not sure if this fits or not, we don’t know a lot about the guy.

380. Harper is Harpun, the Norwegian word for harpoon.

381. Warty Harris is Vorta Humpel, which is more like Warty Bumpy.

382. Bertie Higgs is Bertus Bulter. Hulter til bulter is a Norwegian phrase that means an unorganized mess. Like, you could have a lot of clothes hulter til bulter on your floor.

383. Terence Higgs is Terris Bulter.

384. Geoffrey Hooper is Herman Hollan, which just sounds fun, or at most is a reference to Holland.

385. Inigo Imago is Figaro Imago, after Figaro from The Barber of Seville.

386. Arsenius Jigger is Arsenius Nubbe, which is a small dram of alcoholic liquid.

387. Jugson is Juksom. To jukse means to cheat.

388. Andrew Kirke is Andor Krikkbukk. Krikke is an old horse. Bukk, while also meaning buck and bow, here it’s meant as the Norwegian word for a pommel horse.
My guess here is that krikkbukk is an old name for pommel horse that neither I nor the internet is aware of, and that it has evolved to just being called bukk a while ago.

389. Libatius Borage is Nektarius Bulme. Nektarius from nektar, the Norwegian word for nectar. Bulme means to swell.

For some reason 390. Morag MacDougal is Morag McDonald, and I’m loving it.

391. Laura Madley is Laura Mandelblom, which means almond-flower. Although blomst with an ST ending is a much more common word for flower.

392. Mason is Murpus. Murpuss means plaster, something a mason would use.

393. Jim McGuffin is John Bygeby. A byge is a rain shower, which is fitting since he’s a TV weatherman. By means city, but is also just a semi-common suffix for surnames.

394. Marlene McKinnon is Marlene McMester. Mester means master.

395. Dorcas Meadowes is Dorte Merkelin, and Merkelig means strange.

396. Araminta Meliflua is Araminta Oratoria. In English and Italian, Oratoria is the art of speaking well in public.

397. Galatea Merrythought is Galatea Muntimunn. Munn-til-munn metoden is the mouth-to-mouth method.

398. Montgomery is Mondelin. Might be a mix of the word mandolin and the uncommon word monden, meaning elegance and luxury. I think this makes sense because Montgomery also sounds a bit like a rich person’s name.

399. Moon is Måning, which is an uncommon conjugation of moon. Måning means to expose oneself to moonlight, so you can understand why the word is uncommon.
Translating it directly back to English, you’d get mooning, so that may be the actual meaning Høverstad intended.

400. Mortlake is Myrdelius, where myrde means to murder.

401. Adrian Pucey is Adrian Plom, which may be short for plomme, the Norwegian word for plum. Speaking of,

402. Mulciber is Multiplom, for even more plums. Multiplum is also a math term, the same as the English multiple.

403. Eric Munch is Erik Drøv, which is probably in reference to cud, the partly digested food that cows munch on.

404. Ogg is Oppsand, which sounds like oppsann, which is Norwegian for oopsie.

405. Jimmy Peakes is Jannik Piggtil. A pigg is a spike, but pigg can also mean to be awake and lively. Til just means to or for. Not sure about this one, but since his original name is Peakes, maybe his new surname is meant to mean Spikes For Climbing, like pitons.

406. Perkins is Puddelmann, which means poodle-man.

407. Arkie Philpott is Arky Filliputt. Filliputt was a theatrical music revue from 1961.

408. Piers Polkiss is Simion Smelkus. A smell is a hard hit or collision, so this could be a reference to him beating up people as part of Dudley’s bully gang.

409. Roddy Pontner is Rundolf Styr. Styr means hassle or hubbub. But if you are holding styr, then you are keeping track of something.

410. Ernie Prang is Pistill Prang, while a pistill is a pestle (as in mortar and pestle) and prange means being eyecatching, I think this name is just supposed to sound like Pistol Pang, pang being the Norwegian word for bang.

411. Prentice is Prent, which used to mean something that has been printed, like a newspaper. The word print has taken over in Norway now as well.

412. Fabian Prewett is Fabion Prunk, which means excessive splendor, 

413. Gideon Prewett is Gideon Prunk.

414. Graham Pritchard is Goffen Prask. There’s a few possible explanations to the name Prask. There’s the word trask, which is the Norwegian word for traipse. There’s also the word rask if you remove the P, which means fast. And the word brask, meaning brash.
We don’t know much about this Slytherin student, so we can only guess at the correct explanation.

415. Proudfoot is Kneising, which is to proudly hold your head high.

416. Savage is Wildt. Vilt means wild.

417. Doris Purkiss is Doris Pirk. Pirk means to pick, prod and fiddle with something.

418. Augustus Pye is Gustus Phynk. Since pye is supposed to be short for magpie, I think phynk is meant to be fink, the Norwegian word for a finch.

419. Orla Quirke is Olette Qvaler. In Book Speach , kvaler with a K is a word for a strong physical or psychological pain. In New-Norwegian, kvaler means whales.

420. Urquhart is Urkebart. Urke is both a village in Ørsta in Norway, and an old English term meaning irk, to irritate or annoy. Bart means moustache, so I’m clocking the full name as Annoying Moustache.

421. Urquhart Rackharrow, on the other hand, is Knoedel Streckbenk-Piene. Knoedel is possibly meant to be the German bread dumplings called Knödel. A strekkbenk is the torture instrument known as a rack in English. Piene is close to pine, which means pain.

Which is also why 422. Mr Payne is called Herr Piene.

423. Gawain Robards is Groff Rovart. Groff is almost gruff, which means the same in English and Norwegian. Rovart is close to røver, which means robber.

424. Evan Rosier is Ellmann Rosinius. Rosin is the Norwegian word for raisin.

425. Wilbert Slinkhard is Vilbert Snisk. Snisk may be a mix of a number of different words. Snik, smisk, snusk, snask. Probably more that I can’t even think of, and I have no idea what the correct answer here is.

426. Jack Sloper is Jonny Slumper, meaning to be slumped over.

427. Hippocrates Smethwyck is Hippokrates Smettvink. To smette is to quickly slip in and out of somewhere. Vinke means to wave.

There are two different Stebbins’ in the Harry Potter books. One attended Hogwarts in the 70s, who was translated to 428. Snurke, which is very close to snorke, the Norwegian word for snoring. Snurke is also the Sami word for pig. The Sami are an indigenous people living in northern Norway and Sweden, Finland and Russia.
The other Stebbins attended Hogwarts in the 90s, and was translated to 429. Stubbe, which means tree stump.

His Christmas Ball date was 430. Fawcett, which was translated to Faller, which means falls.

431. Billy Stubbs is Billy Stubben, which is specifically ‘that’ or ‘the’ tree stump.

432. Patricia Stimpson is Myrmelin Stymp. Stymp is close to stump, which is Norwegian for a short last piece of something, be it bread or a cigarette. It is also a cutesy way of saying ass.
Myrmelin might be a mix of the first name Irmelin and the place called Myrmel.

433. Summerby is Sommersett, which seems to just be the surname Summersett, but with the Norwegian spelling of summer.

434. Tofty is Tufte, which means to lay a foundation. There’s also a famous Norwegian rower named Olaf Tufte.

435. Kenneth Towler is Kendrian Tutler. To tutle or tusle means to walk in a shy, slow and careful way.

436. Quentin Trimble is Quintus Scielven. To be skjelven means to be shaky, either from fear or cold.

437. Lisa Turpin is Lisa Tørpin. A tørrpinn is something you’d call someone boring, and literally means dry stick.

438. Dolores Jane Umbridge is Venke Dolorosa Uffert. Uff is a onomatopoeia used to express dismay. It is well known by Scandinavian Americans in the US as part of the phrase Uff Da, which means uff then. It could be said that someone who says uff a lot is an uffert.

439. Vaisey is Valken. A valk is a fold of skin or fabric, usually rolls of fat around your waist.

440. Adalbert Waffling is Adalbert Vingling. Someone or something vinglete is wobbly. But it can also mean that they are indecisive, leaning back and forth between one side and the other.

441. Celestina Warbeck is Celestina Sjamant. Just like Warbeck is pretty close to warlock, Sjamant is pretty close to sjaman, the Norwegian word for a shaman.

442. Warrington is Wold. Vold means violence.

443. Eric Whalley is Erik Hvalland. Hvalland means Whale-Country.

444. Kevin Whitby is Kent Wirring. To virre is to move somewhat randomly and erratically around.

445. Willy Widdershins is Krimian Kverve. Krimian indicates to me someone who is involved with crime, and I’ll link it to the outdated word kriminal, obviously meaning criminal, which has been replaced by the word kriminell.
Kverve has at least two meanings. The first is to surround. The other is basically gaslighting, getting someone to see things as other than what they are.

446. Will is Willy, which is weird because there is a theory among fans that this is just Mundungus Fletcher shortening Willy Widdershins name to Will. But as mentioned, that character is Krimian Kverve. So, in the Norwegian version, at least, these are two different characters.

447. Wilkes is Winther, which sounds like Vinter, the Norwegian word for winter.

448. Williamson is Wisling. Visling basically means hissing.

449. Eldred Worple is Eldar Woffel. Closest I could come on this is just another variation on waffle.

450. Aragog is Argarapp. Arg means angry. Rapp is a quick smack, usually with a stick or similar object.

451. Ripper is Glefs. Glefs (in this context) is a word specifically referring to a dog snapping at something with its teeth.

452. Golgomath is Golgorosk. Rosk might be røsk, which means to rip, which could be fitting concidering that he decapitated Karkus.

453. Fawkes is Vulcan, vulkan being the Norwegian word for volcano.

454. Binky is Fluff, which means the same in English as in Norwegian.

455. Tenebrus is Tenebros. A minor change, but possibly because the word brus means soda, and that would be too silly to be part of the name for a thestral.

456. Sanguini is Blodini. We don’t really have a good translation for the word sanguine in Norway, so going with blod (the Norwegian word for blood) was a good choice.

457. Joey Jenkins is Jokke Jensen. Jokke is a common nickname for people with the name Joachim.

458. Arkie Alderton is Almar Oldermann. An oldermann is an old-timey word for chairman, with the word formann being much more common.

459. Hetty Bayliss is Hetty Bump, which also means the same in English as in Norwegian.

460. Angus Fleet changed his name to Angus McAngus, and also moved from Peebles to Glasgow for some reason.

461. Egbert the Egregious is Egbert den ekstreme. Whereas Egregious is mostly used to mean extremely bad, his Norwegian title simply means Egbert the Extreme.

462. Godelot is Gomerik, which seems to reference Emeric the Evil, another owner of the Elder Wand. Instead of Emeric we have Gomerik. God is the Norwegian word for good, although the character was considered quite unpleasant.

463. Hereward is Herrover, which means Over Here.

464. Barnabas Deverill is Barrabas Desprell. Barrabas was probably named after the biblical character, and sprell means antics or flailing about.

465. Humphrey Belcher is Humpertus Raap. Humper means humping and rap means burp. Humpingtus Burp.

466. Betty Braithwaite is Billa Brektveit. Billa means beetle, brek means bleat, and tveit can be an old viking farm or an open area inside a forrest.

467. Ivor Dillonsby is Iver Dillerdal. Iver means eagerness. Dille can mean messing about with something, or hanging and messing around generally. Dal means valley, and is a very commen suffix to surnames and locations, what with all the Norwegian mountains.

468. Colonel Fubster is Oberst Fubbel. Fubbel might be Swedish slang for being clumsy, or is possibly just a Norwegianisation of Fubster.

469. Hengist of Woodcroft is Hengist fra Krattbøl. A kratt is the same as a thicket, as in shrub thicket or thorn thicket. A bøle is an area where people and/or animals gather and live. Bøl is a semi-common suffix for locations in Norway.
So, since the only part of Hengist’s name that has been changed is where he comes from, Høverstad has effectively changed the nationality of the founder of Hogsmeade to Norwegian, and I think this is the only character he has done this for.

470. Alberic Grunnion is Alberik Grunning, which means ground work or foundation. Often used for the first coat of paint and the like.

471. Circe is Kirke, which is the Norwegian word for church.

472. Ptolemy is Ptolemeus, which are both names used for the same real-life Alexandrian Mathematician, although usually spelled Ptolemaios. Whereas Brittain often anglicised names for ancient historical figures, Norway would usually keep the Greek or Latin versions of the names.

473. Davey Gudgeon is David Dosmer, which pretty much means dopey.

474. The Sorting Hat is Valghatten, which can be translated as both The Choice Hat and The Decision Hat, which is a fitting double meaning since the hat’s decision can be influenced by the student’s choice.

475. Madam Puddifoot is Madam Puslefot. Pusle means to gently work with or move something small. It may have some relation to the English word puzzle, one way or another.
Fot is just the Norwegian word for foot.

476. Vindictus Viridian is Vendettus Grøhn, after the words vendetta and grønn, which means green.

477. Barnabas the Barmy is Salto den skjøre. Skjør means fragile, and a salto is the same as a somersault, which is presumably what he did involuntarily when the trolls he was teaching ballet to clubbed him to death.

478. Gregory the Smarmy is Gregorius den glatte. Glatt means smooth, in every meaning of the word.

479. Wendelin the Weird is Vendelin Villråde. Villråde is a variation on the word rådvill, which means to be at a loss.

480. Lachlan the Lanky is Sildrian den slåpne. Sildrian is similar to the word slendrian, which is a lazy work-shy person. But drian is a suffix indicating a person who exemplifies the prefix. And the sil prefix that has replaced the slen for this name is a reference to the saying “tynn som en sil”, which means “as thin as a sand eel”. Although the word sil also means sieve, and as that is a more common use for the word, I think a lot of Norwegians think that the phrase means “as thin as a sieve”. I certainly did, before I thought about it for this video.
Slåpne means slouchy and nonchalant, so the full name put together sort of makes up the description of a lanky person.

481. Wilfred the Wistful is Smaldrian den smektende. Smal means narrow or thin.
Smektende means languishing, which I feel is just a particular flavor of wistful.

Harry and Ginny’s children from the epilogue are all named after other characters from the series, so their name changes are just based on those original character’s name changes.

482. James Sirius Potter is Jakob Sirius Potter.

483. Lily Luna Potter is Lilly Lulla Potter.

And Albus Severus Potter was already counted at the beginning of this list, because his name was completely unchanged.

484. Rose Granger-Weasley is Rosa Grang-Wiltersen

485. Hugo Granger-Weasley is Hugo Grang-Wiltersen

486. Victoire Weasley is Victoire Wiltersen

487. Teddy Lupin is Teddy Lupus

And finally, 488. Scorpius Malfoy is Scorpio Malfang.

Bonus Round

Here are some translations that are not character names, but were just too good for me to not to let you know about:

1.  The word for goblin used in the Norwegian version is gnom, which of course means gnome. This is because Norway doesn’t really have a good word for goblin. Goblins are probably closer to small trolls from Norwegian folklore than to gnomes, but you wouldn’t exactly think trolls would be a good fit for running a bank.
2. The Weird Sisters band is called Skumle Søstre, which means Scary Sisters. The members of the band were never actually named in the books, so I will not be covering them.
3. The Hogsmeade shop Dervish and Banges is Dervisj & Bang, but it’s not clear if Dervish and Banges are the people who started the store or names of objects they sell and repair. As such, I could not include them in the main list.
4.  And then we have the Norwegian word for Muggles. The English word stems from an old Kentish word for tail. Since most of the muggles we see in the first book are meant to be unsympathetic, Høverstad went with the name Gomper. Change the GO with RU and you’ll get Rumper, meaning Asses. The word originates from the Norse gumpr, and you can still find gump in dictionaries as a word to describe tailfeathers of a bird, even thought the word halefjær is much more commonly used. Gomp is also the Norwegian word for a singular muggle, alongside being a famous type of Norwegian candy.
5.  Hogwarts is directly translated to Galtvort.
6.  Hogsmeade is Galtvang.
7.  The Diagon Alley is Diagonallmenningen.
8.  And The Leaky Cauldron is Den Lekke Heksekjel.
9.  Little Whinging is Søndre Syting, which means South Whinging
10.  and Privet Drive is Hekkveien, which means Hedge Road.
11.  While both Galleons are translated directly to Galleoner,
12.  and Sickles are translated directly to Sigder,
13. Knuts are renamed to Fjong, probably because Knut is a very normal Norwegian boy’s name. The Norwegian word Fjong means fancy.
    So, translating that back again, there are 29 Fancys to a Sickle and 17 Sickles to a Galleon.
14. SPEW, The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, is renamed to H.I.K.K., which acronym is the Norwegian word for hiccups, and spells out Husnissenes Internasjonale Kamp-Koalisjon, which roughly translates to The House Elves’ International Combat Coalition.
    I also think Hiccups is a slightly more respectful name for an anti-slavery group than SPEW is. So I’m glad he softened the joke here, even if it was just to make the acronym work.
15.  The Pensieve is called a Tanketank, literally a Think Tank.
16.  Quidditch is Rumpeldunk. So if I were to translate this word directly, I would just go with Ass-Pound. But I read a blogpost written by Høverstad where he mentioned that he gave Quidditch the name Rumpeldunk because it’s an exhausting ball-game. But unless it’s related to the word rumpeballe again, that I mentioned back with poor Neville, I’m not really sure how that is relevant to the name.
17.  The Chasers at least are just directly translated to Jagere
18.  and the Keeper is still called a Keeper in Norwegian, just like in football.
19. The Beaters are named Knakkere, with knakke being a word that I’ve never heard before that supposedly means to beat repeatedly.
20. And then the Seeker is a Speider, which maps on to all definitions of the English word Scout.
21. A Bludger is called a Klabb, which means a hard slap,
22. The Quaffle is a Sluff, which I can’t explain, but it at least sounds like something sloppy and worn down.

23. And then The Golden Snitch is called Gullsnoppen. Seeing the thumbnail above, you might think “Surely not. This has to be clickbait.” But no. Snoppen is indeed a slang-term for a penis, usually used very playfully, rarely in a sexual manner, more likely to be used by a new parent than by a lover. And it sounds like something rather small too, like the Golden Snitch. But even looking up snopp in online dictionaries, I found both penis and kuk listed as definitions, with kuk being the Norwegian word for cock. So, in all seriousness, in the Norwegian version of Harry Potter – Harry is several times chasing the golden cock, and snatches it quite a few times as well.

24. The Mirror of Erised is called Speilet Mørd. Mørd is very close to mord, which means murder, so the name is much more sinister in Norwegian. But it is also the word drøm spelled backwards, which means dream. So Mørd was a very evocative and descriptive name choice for that mirror.

25. And finally, Chapter 13 of Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, in English called The Secret Riddle, is in Norwegian called TOM, ELLER FULL AV FAEN. While Tom is a name, tom is also the Norwegian word for empty. Eller means or, full is full, av means of, and faen is probably the most popular swear word in all of Norway. It originates from the word fanden, which is an old Norwegian word for the devil, but it is mostly deployed as our version of saying fuck. So that chapter title can be read as EMPTY, OR FULL OF DEVILISHNESS, – TOM, OR FULL OF DEVILISHNESS, or even EMPTY, OR FULL OF FUCK!

I’ve seen it reported several places online that there are over 700 characters in the Harry Potter books, But as far as I could see, you’d have to include all unnamed characters and even count every single pseudonym and nickname as a separate character to get to that number. Still, it’s entirely possible that I missed a few, so please let me know if you can think of any, and I’ll find the translated version for you.

Now, this video took quite some time to research. I found several different lists of Norwegian character names online but ‘none’ of them were even close to complete, so I had to cross-reference everything, and then go book diving for the rest. The best, but still incomplete, list I found I had to use the Internet Way Back Machine to access, as the link I found had long been inactive. But even the English lists were incomplete, although not as badly, and it also took quite some time to weed out names that were not from any of the books.

The Harry Potter Fandom Wiki for example is great at listing where characters show up, but not where their names are actually used. Sometimes a character is just described, and we learn what they are called much later. And sometimes only part of their name is used. So, using the Wiki was helpful, but it still took a lot of searching through the Norwegian books to find the translated names.

And the fact that the Norwegian subtitles for the movies translated some of the names differently than what the books did also complicated my research. And all that before even getting started at explaining and researching the meanings behind the names. I learned through making this video that Google Translate is absolutely useless and makes major mistakes as often as it gets things correct.
The point I’m trying to make is that this was an incredibly time-consuming video to make, so if you got any enjoyment out of it, please like, comment, subscribe, let the whole video play out, and share it. All that good stuff. And if this video does well, maybe I’ll do a follow up.

There are so many good translations of spells, objects, locations, nicknames, and so on. And Torstein Bugge Høverstad also translated a whole bunch of other books, like the Lord of the Rings, so let me know if that is of interest to anyone.

And I’ve got a ton of other fun video ideas, so please consider supporting my Patreon to get your name in the credits, so that I can make a lot more videos much more quickly by doing this full-time, or even part-time.

Thank you for reading and/or watching this. I hope you enjoyed it.

Related post: Harry Potter and The Books That Made Me A Reader