I do quite like the idea of the arousing of ancient magic or trees figuring into the title.

What about The Walking Trees?

The Waking Trees? 

Dawn of Magic?

That Deciduous Strength?  

Out of the Silent Forest?  

Narnia Strikes Back?  

...guess I'll stop. The Forest Awakens is actually a pretty good title tbh. 

  That Deciduous Strength is probably my favourite of those.
I'd prefer a title that doesn't give away some crucial 'magical' parts before the book has been opened, or movie begun.

What about a E E Nesbit sort of title, Four Pevensies and a Prince?

Posted by: @coracle

That Deciduous Strength is probably my favourite of those.

Hey, watch it, you guys, or you'll have the Evergreens coming after you for leaving them out...  

@the-mad-poet The Forest Awakens is the idea I like the most, although the sneaky pun — Force / Forest — doesn't work in my accent and wouldn't in most British accents either, including Lewis's. So I doubt he would have come up with that himself, even if he'd known about Star Wars... but it's a good one anyway. Actually, it's such an intriguing title that I would want to find out what it was about even if I didn't pick up on the joke! But as Coracle suggests, maybe it does give a bit too much away...

I recall reading that Lewis's original ideas for the title of his second Narnia book were Drawn into Narnia and A Horn in Narnia, but the publisher wasn't happy with either. It's interesting that none of his final titles for the Chronicles mention Narnia at all, except that Prince Caspian has the subtitle "The Return to Narnia" (which has only ever been printed on the title page, as far as I know, not on the cover of the book). I've heard it pointed out that that would have been a spoiler for the earliest readers — when Prince Caspian was first published, the only other children's book by C.S. Lewis was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and even though the second book begins with the same characters from our world, it's not obvious at first that the land they suddenly find themselves in is Narnia. The first readers could easily have wondered whether these four children were going to journey to other magical lands in the sequel(s), except that the title page gives the game away.

Posted by: @coracle

What about a E E Nesbit sort of title, Four Pevensies and a Prince?

Sounds a bit like Four Weddings and a Funeral... Interestingly, though, I believe it's only in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that we learn that the four siblings' surname is Pevensie. Their surname isn't given in the first two books.

I'm afraid I can't think of any very original alternative titles — The Rise of Old Narnia, The Re-Enchantment of Narnia, The Reawakening of Magic... The Return of the King?? (oops, wrong world  ) None of them really sound quite right for the actual story overall.

I personally don't mind Prince Caspian as a title — even though he doesn't come into the story until Chapter 4, the plot as a whole is largely about him, and the name Caspian is nice and intriguing enough (to my ears, anyway) that I, as a young reader, certainly wanted to find out who he was and what he was going to do. It would have been more disappointing if he'd only come in right at the end and hadn't played a significant role in the story.

I've always thought The Silver Chair is the weakest of Lewis's Narnia titles, in that the chair only plays a part towards the end, and then only briefly — and we never find out where it came from or what the evil magic in it had the power to do. Actually, that's another book for which Lewis had several unsuccessful ideas for the title — Night under Narnia, Gnomes under Narnia and News under Narnia. But those also give away an essential part of the plot — the adventure in Underland, which I know I didn't expect as a first-time reader.

This is all lots of fun to think about, but I'm glad I'm not the publisher who had to pick the final titles!!  

Prince Caspian is actually my least favorite book, and the one I read last in the series (I read them all out of order). I had put it off for last just because of its title (!)

If I had to retitle it, I think The Lion Rises or The Lion Risen would work, Lion being not only Aslan in this case but symbolizing Narnia-the-country. Plus it ties back into the first book and makes them the duology they were envisioned to be at some point.

I thought of the titles The Great New Kingdom or The Good Kingdom, which of course refers to Aslan being in control when Miraz is dead and gone.  It seems like that is what the book is mostly about— good overcoming evil.  The process of a fine young prince becoming a righteous king is a deeply thoughtful part of the story. Prince Caspian is that kind of fairy tale just like the other books since it is so much about the standards of goodness for Narnian royalty and what it means to do right.

@rose Prince Caspian is one my favorites as well (tied with Voyage of the Dawn Treader), and the title character is one of my favorite characters. He not only chose a different path than most of his Telmarine ancestors, but brought back the old days to help change the path of Narnia's history.

As for a better title, probably one I could think of is "A Prince and the Horn."