I haven't seen Shasta in other literature or name indexes for individuals, but Mount Shasta and Shasta county are named for the Shasta people (today the Shasta Indian Nation), a California tribe that has been very close to extinction more than once. I'm doubtful that Lewis would have been aware of them, unless he somehow came into contact with someone from the nation. It would be cool if he did, though!

I would also note that Shasta is very close to the Persian/Pashto name Shaista (Shayesteh), meaning worthy of admiration. I've only ever heard/seen this name for women, but given that Aravis is Greek for "Arab" and Lewis pulled a lot of generic Middle Eastern tropes for his design of Calormen, I wouldn't be surprised if it might have been an influencer.

@wren Thank you! The Persian etymology definitely makes a lot more sense; even if Lewis did know about the Shasta people and/or one or more of the geographic features named for them, there's no clear reason why he would have chosen to use the name as a Calormene name, whereas a Persion word would seem much more likely. Thanks again!

I wouldn't be surprised if C. S. Lewis didn't think that much about the etymology of the name and just liked how "Shasta" sounded-or maybe he disliked it since Aravis says that Cor is a nicer name. 

Posted by: @wren

Lewis pulled a lot of generic Middle Eastern tropes for his design of Calormen, I wouldn't be surprised if it might have been an influencer.

Wikipedia here says that Shasta is the name of a Hindu god, so that would certainly make a lot of sense, in terms of coming from that same general pool of inspiration sources:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shasta_(deity)

I don't know where Lewis got the name from but in university one of my professors was named Shasta. However she is female and my association with the name has always been male from Narnia which was strange, though I doubt anyone else picked up on it

I fell down the Wikipedia rabbit hole of Shasta and found a book that, once I read the description, I remembered, but couldn't have come up with on my own--Shasta of the Wolves. Though set in the Americas, it was actually by a British author. Given that this story was published in the early 1900s in Britain (George G Harrap & Co), it perhaps might have been an influencer--that said, I think it is more likely Lewis pulled it from Middle Eastern/Southeast Asian sources, given his love of older literature, than a book that would have, more or less, been by his contemporary.

@wren I've just had a look at it on Wikipedia as well and it seems to have been popular enough that it was reprinted up until 1959. It's not quite contemporary with Lewis's childhood — published in 1919, the year he turned 21 — but he might well have heard of it and perhaps unconsciously retained the name. He seems to have drawn on all sorts of sources for inspiration, including the name Narnia, which is the medieval name of a village in central Italy (in modern Italian it's called Narni) that Lewis spotted in an atlas of the ancient world while he was studying to enter university — I think it was when he had Professor Kirkpatrick as his tutor — and he circled the name just because he liked it!  We may never know exactly where his precise inspiration for Shasta or some of the other less obvious names came from, though — it could be a whole combination of factors that he himself may not have been fully aware of.

I know many people find Michael Ward to be a bit controversial (So apologies in advance - but it might be helpful).

He thought that the name Shasta might be derived from "Castor and Pollux": the two twins that make up the constellation Gemini in Ancient Mythology ('Pollux' does not sound like 'Corin' to me though).

Castor is a great horseman (Shasta learns how to ride from Bree - "He was pleased to hear the Lord Darrin say to the King, “The boy has a true horseman’s seat, Sire. I’ll warrant there’s noble blood in him.”")

Pollux is a great boxer (like Corin who boxed the Lapsed Bear of Stormness for 33 rounds without a time-keeper).

Posted by: @davidd

He thought that the name Shasta might be derived from "Castor and Pollux": the two twins that make up the constellation Gemini in Ancient Mythology ('Pollux' does not sound like 'Corin' to me though).

I think that's called an extremely long bow to draw, just like most of what Michael Ward has come up with.

Lewis was very good with classical and other allusions when he intended to make them (which he did more rarely than some people seem to assume, particularly since he wasn't writing allegory). If he'd wanted us to think of Castor and Pollux in relation to Cor and Corin, he would have made the connection much more obvious.

When he does give a character a name with a meaning, it's nearly always pretty straightforward. "Aslan" is the Turkish word for "lion". "Jadis", assuming it's pronounced Jade-is rather than Jah-dis (and it's the former in the FOTF radio plays, which had Lewis's stepson Douglas Gresham as part of the production team), sounds like "jade", which is both a beautiful gemstone AND an old-fashioned term for a beautiful but hard-hearted woman. Emeth, the good-hearted young Calormene who recognised Aslan as the true deity when he saw him, has a name that is the Hebrew word for "truth". (I don't think Lewis was nearly as familiar with Hebrew as he was with classical Greek and Latin, but he wrote studies on the Psalms, and given how readily he picked up languages, I'm sure he must have known at least a little Hebrew as well.) 

And most of his other characters' names either describe something about them (Trufflehunter, Puddleglum, Jewel, Farsight), or are onomatopoeic (Reepicheep, Bree, Hwin), or are just something made-up that obviously sounded appropriate for the character (Nikabrik, Trumpkin, Coriakin, Ramandu, Rishda, Ahoshta, Lasaraleen, and so many others).

I honestly would guess Shasta is in that latter category, and if the name was at all influenced by Shasta of the Wolves or Mount Shasta in the US, then it was most likely an unconscious borrowing, or simply another name that Lewis thought sounded good — or else it could just be a complete coincidence. 

Isn’t Shasta the name of a flower?  I am not sure if the flower has anything to do with Narnia, but I think it is kind of a daisy.  As for Dr. Michael Ward, his views seem rather opinionated.  I don’t think the Dawn Treader was a complete disaster, but it just needed some adjustment of the plot to bring it closer to the book.  I don’t know if I can trust his views on Narnia that much.

Posted by: @narnian78

As for Dr. Michael Ward, his views seem rather opinionated.  I don’t think the Dawn Treader was a complete disaster, but it just needed some adjustment of the plot to bring it closer to the book.  I don’t know if I can trust his views on Narnia that much.

I think you've confused Michael Ward (the author of Planet Narnia) with Michael Apted (the director of Walden's VDT movie).

@icarus

Posted by: @icarus

I think you've confused Michael Ward (the author of Planet Narnia) with Michael Apted (the director of Walden's VDT movie).

I remember reading what Dr. Michael Ward’s opinion of the Dawn Treader movie was, and I don’t agree with it. In fact there is a video on this website where he says that the movie was a disaster. You can view it for yourself if you wish. It is not as bad as he says it is, although it could have been much closer to the book. 

Here is the article on Greta Gerwig where Walden’s Dawn Treader movie is mentioned:

https://www.narniaweb.com/2024/11/dr-michael-ward-on-greta-gerwig-directing-narnia/

I remember reading his book Planet Narnia years ago and I thought it was too conjectural.  But that is another topic which involves too much to discuss here. I was wondering if I can trust any of his views on Narnia.  You are assuming too much if you think I am confusing his views with those of the movie director Michael Apted. They are two different people with very different views of the same Narnia book.  

Getting back to the topic, I don’t see what the stars Castor and Pollux have to do with name Shasta. Is there any connection at all between them?  If there is any reference to those characters from mythology please let me know. I don’t know of any references to them in The Horse and His Boy. 

Hi all! Donning my mod hat here. If you are interested in discussing Planet Narnia, Michael Apted, and the Walden version of Dawn Treader, you are welcome to open a thread or move the discussion to an existing thread in General Movie Discussion as appropriate. 

And now...back to names!

Posted by: @narnian78

Isn’t Shasta the name of a flower?  I am not sure if the flower has anything to do with Narnia, but I think it is kind of a daisy. 

Yes, I have some in my garden. Big and cheerful. Maybe I can research the name.