There’s a Mount Shasta in Northern California. My parents and I have been there some years ago. 

I remember working at a garden center many years ago.  There were Shasta daisies flowers and seeds.  I don’t know if the flower has anything to do with the character in the Narnia books.

I've just looked it up, and the Shasta daisy was first cultivated in the US in 1890 (it's a cross between several species of daisy) and named after Mount Shasta in California, because of its snow-white petals. I don't know if it was popular in Britain in Lewis's time, but given that he doesn't seem to have had much interest in gardening — or in American mountains for that matter — I would guess that's not where he got the character's name from.

I really think it's most likely coincidental and he just invented the name "Shasta" himself as something that sounded vaguely foreign and exotic, similar to most of his other names from Calormen (Arsheesh, Anradin, Aravis, Ahoshta, Lasaraleen, Rabadash and so on). I reckon he had a good knack for coining names that somehow sound right for each particular character, even when those names don't have any literal meaning or obvious derivation. 

Posted by: @icarus

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)

That derivation wouldn't surprise me at all, when I think Lewis' tropes aren't strictly speaking, Middle Eastern or Persian, but also cross Asia Minor from Istanbul to Central Asia, & beyond, into the Indian subcontinent, where we have not only Tashkent, once capital of Uzbekistan, but also of archaeological discoveries involving Peter Frankopan, an Oxford University scholar, whose 2015 The Silk Roads: a new history of the world, suggest that humanity spread across Eurasia & elsewhere in the world, lured by trade as much as by displacement by warfare, conquest, disease, and much else. And though such trade involved furs, gold, silver, spices and much more, it also included slaves, as was also the case for the Ottoman Empire, which also spread into Europe, besieging Vienna, as late as July 14th to 12th September 1683. It seems that "the battle is noted for including the largest known cavalry charge in history".

I read online this statement:  Recently, archaeologists unearthed two exceptional lost cities in the Pamir mountains of eastern Uzbekistan, known as Tugunbulak and Tashbulak. Wikipedia informs me that the term, Tarkhan, if not Lewis' terminology of Tarkhaan, was used among the Sogdian, Saka, Hephthalite, Turkic, and proto-Mongol peoples of Central Asia and by other Eurasian nomads. It was a high rank in the army of Timur. Tarkhans commanded military contingents (roughly of regimental size under the Turkic Khazars) and were, roughly speaking, generals. They could also be assigned as military governors of conquered regions.

Precisely how Calormen's empire-building was organised, with its capital at Tashbaan.

I wonder if Lewis even thought of the flower when he named his boy character Shasta. He might have thought of the Hindu god Shasta because mythology was always on his mind. And perhaps the flower was named after the god. I don’t know if flowers were often used at that time for boy’s names, but the gender of the name might not have made much difference to him if at all. At the time that he lived the genders were more separated, but I don’t know how important that was to him.

Posted by: @narnian78

I wonder if Lewis even thought of the flower when he named his boy character Shasta. He might have thought of the Hindu god Shasta because mythology was always on his mind.

That is possible. I don't know exactly how familiar Lewis was with Hindu traditions in particular, but India (including the regions that are now Pakistan and Bangladesh) was part of the British Empire during most of his life, and when he and his brother Warnie invented their stories of Boxen as children, Warnie's contributions were set in his own fantasy version of India. So it's reasonably likely that Jack, from a young age, would have encountered a range of names and terms from Indian cultures. Whether Shasta was one of them, and whether he liked it and stored it up in his memory for future use — as he did with the name Narnia when he found it on a map of ancient Italy — I don't think we have any direct evidence, so we may never know for sure.

I've looked up Shasta in Hinduism and it seems it's a name meaning "teacher, guide, lord, ruler" and is associated with several deific figures in southern India. Nothing about the name or the deities seems to have any kind of thematic connection with Shasta the character in HHB, so I think it's safe to conclude that if Lewis did find the name in some text about Hinduism, he took it simply because he thought it sounded right for the character he was inventing, not because he wanted to make a connection between "his" Shasta and the Shasta figures in Hindu tradition.

And perhaps the flower was named after the god.

No. As I posted earlier after looking it up on Wikipedia, the Shasta daisy was named after Mount Shasta (in northern California) because of its snow-white petals.

I don’t know if flowers were often used at that time for boy’s names, but the gender of the name might not have made much difference to him if at all. At the time that he lived the genders were more separated, but I don’t know how important that was to him.

Again, the flower is named after the mountain, and the origin of the mountain's name (in English) is obscure — the indigenous peoples of that area are commonly referred to as the Shasta people, but there were originally several different clans among them, and the term "Shasta" may be a personal name in one of their languages (now extinct) that English speakers misapplied to the local native peoples as a whole. I just learned all that through browsing Wikipedia and I very much doubt C.S. Lewis knew any of it!  

@Narnian78  He might have thought of the Hindu god Shasta because mythology was always on his mind.

C. S. Lewis definitely did have mythology on his mind. The Calormene deity, depicted in The Last Battle, not only has a Turkic-style name, (eg Tash, meaning stone), but portrayed with multiple arms, Tash is also uncommonly like the dancing depiction of Shiva the Hindu God, also called the destroyer, a major player in Hinduism, & worship of which has spread in all directions from Indonesia's Bali, Sri Lanka & right through the Indian subcontinent. Both benevolent as a bringer of good luck, and destructive, Shiva is a major Hindu deity, & not to be trifled with. 

And when I looked up Shasta (deity) on Wikipedia, I discovered that Shasta (IAST Śāstā) is a Hindu deity, described as the son of the deities Shiva and Mohini, Vishnu's female avatar. Arsheesh, who gave Shasta that particular name, meaning teacher, guide or ruler, & with the function of guardian of boundaries, though unimaginative and avaricious, was also rather pious in his worship of Calormene gods, whose vengeance he feared. I can't see him naming any child after mountains or dams, let alone flowers. Rescuing Shasta from a boat the operator of which had died, perhaps fleeing a likely shipwreck, was an act that enabled Arsheesh to feel virtuous, you see. 

@waggawerewolf27 I don't know if we can prove C.S. Lewis knew all that about Shasta the deity, or whether it was on his mind when he gave his main character in HHB that name — it might be another example of too long a bow to draw.

However, I totally agree that it's very likely Lewis was drawing on India (or British colonial ideas of India) for at least part of the inspiration for Calormen and Calormene culture. Commentators and critics are usually quick to assume that Calormen is largely based on the Middle East and that the Calormenes are a clumsy stereotype of Muslims. But HHB makes clear that the Calormenes worship multiple gods, which Muslims emphatically do not. And Tash, with his four arms, definitely seems to be inspired partly by a Hindu deity, as you say.

It may have been only a coincidence that the mountain Shasta and the flower have the same name as the Hindu god. Lewis might have heard of the flower, but I don’t think he had much interest in gardening. The mountain and perhaps the flower have some connections with a tribe of Native Americans:

https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=shasta%20native%20american%20tribe&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5

Lewis had some interest in Native American mythology (e.g., the Hiawatha names), but he was much more knowledgeable about the Greek and Norse myths. As far as we know he did not travel to California, where the Shasta tribe is located. Shasta would more likely refer to the Hindu god or some other deity, or perhaps he just invented the name because it sounded like something from the Calormene culture that he created for Narnia.

I first read HHB in the mid-1970s. At the time there was an American brand of soda called Shasta which left me mighty puzzled at the character's name!

Posted by: @narnian78

It may have been only a coincidence that the mountain Shasta and the flower have the same name as the Hindu god.The mountain and perhaps the flower have some connections with a tribe of Native Americans

Absolutely--as discussed extensively on page 1, Mount Shasta and Shasta Springs get their name from the Shasta people (and Shasta soda/Shasta Beverages is named for the mountain, as is the Shasta Daisy, as Courtenay noted above). The Shasta people get their name from a misattribution by early trappers, who called them Sastiste, likely based on an external tribe's name for them--early spellings usually had the word ending in e, é, i, or y, with only one instance of a (Chasta) until the California Legislature designated a combination spelling of "Shasta" as the official spelling in the 1800s. (I've also heard stories about the name coming from the name of an elder, but that's never been from a verified source.)

Posted by: @courtenay

when he and his brother Warnie invented their stories of Boxen as children, Warnie's contributions were set in his own fantasy version of India. So it's reasonably likely that Jack, from a young age, would have encountered a range of names and terms from Indian cultures.

Interesting! I didn't know that particular bit, but it also would indicate that they likely consumed a chunk of both real and fictional material about what at that point was identified as India, which definitely could resurface as an adult--especially when trying to create a more "foreign" culture that would seem fascinating to children. One of the recurring questions in HHB seems to be whether it is really "worth" leaving Calormen, especially for Aravis, so I'm sure he drew on the things he held interest in as a child as well.

Posted by: @waggawerewolf27

portrayed with multiple arms, Tash is also uncommonly like the dancing depiction of Shiva the Hindu God, also called the destroyer,

For whatever reason, I never made that connection--although now that you mention it, I see it quite clearly, especially if one thinks of Ganesha as well (same sort of visual setup of multiple arms, but with an elephant head). The illustrations of Tash have always reminded me a bit more of Quetzalcoatl or Chalchiuhtotolin (likely because of where I grew up--the same reason Shasta is not unusual to me either), but I had made the assumption that a bird-headed diety inspiring Lewis would probably be Assyrian or maybe Egyptian in origin.

I understand that C.S.Lewis was conversant with fairytales from many lands, along with Roger Lancelyn Green, a friend of his, who has also written a biography of Andrew Lang, who died in 1912. This is the author who compiled the Red Fairy book, the Yellow Fairy book and so on, right through the colour spectrum. Aladdin & his lamp is in the Blue Fairy Book. I had the good fortune to have read several of these books, thanks to being a member of our local council library, once I got out of boarding school. They had a really good collection of fairytales from other countries, also, including Spain and Russia and their well-known empires, in the Americas and across the Asian Continent as far as the Kamchatka Peninsula, on the sea of Okhotsk & the Pacific Ocean. Go up to the Aleutian Islands & Bering Strait, you might find that there are various peoples on either side of that Strait, who might still be akin linguistically, such as the Inuit in North America, or Native North Americans comparable to native languages spoken in Siberia. And I nearly forgot that Alaska was part of the Russian Empire at one stage, before USA acquired that state.

It is rare for people, these days, to talk about the Venetians & their thirteenth & fourteenth century trading empire, with its access along the Silk Roads, on roads somewhat less travelled since 1918, under the old USSR, & which scholars like Peter Frankopan are still researching. Remember Marco Polo? He wrote a book about his travels and his time at Kublai Khan's court (about 1288 or thereabouts). I found this sort of thing quite fascinating, along with tales of the Portuguese Vasco da Gama, who in 1497-99 became the first European to reach India, in all its Mughal splendour, the proper legendary place, that lured on so many traders from Western Europe, including Great Britain. The Hindu religion is quite ancient & widespread, dating back at least 4,000 years, and there are many other belief systems such as Buddhism, Jainism, Shinto & Shamanism, in particular, which are likely as old, & might also straddle the Bering Strait, from Asia to North America, maybe as far down as California. It is said that the original people in South America, came from Asia, some 10,000 years ago or more, before the end of the Ice Ages. 

At a guess, I would say that Tash is a composite character, derived from a part Indian, and part of the Turkic-speaking region to the north of Iran, Afghanistan, right up to Tibet & China. But yes, he could be Mexican as well, if their gods have bird-heads, or have more than one set of arms.