logoalt Hacker News

dhosektoday at 7:34 PM3 repliesview on HN

Pax is another one that violates the rule that someone pointed out lower. Also Malm is a surname which is another violation of the rule (one of the characters in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was named, if I recall correctly, Stefan Malm). I remember reading the books with my then-wife and she said it was like reading an IKEA catalog. I thought she was referring to the character/place names, but it turned out that the second book had a long section where the titular girl furnishes an apartment from IKEA and—that chapter was exactly like reading an IKEA catalog.


Replies

jagaergladtoday at 8:18 PM

Although "Malm" is a common surname, it's a word first and a name second if that makes sense

The same way "Brown" is common surname in English but mostly makes you think of the color first

BambooleanLogictoday at 8:36 PM

When it comes to names like "MALM", it's likely incidental.

"Malm" is a a noun with several meanings, most notably "metal ore", but also some (more archaic) meanings like "area with sandy soil" or "city outskirts".

The fact that "Malm" also happens to be a surname is secondary; Swedish has a lot of surnames that are simply ordinary nouns or adjectives. A completely literal "No surnames, ever" rule would probably be quite a bit too restrictive. I suspect that the actual internal rule is "No names that are primarily (or solely) surnames", or something to that effect.

AndrewKemendotoday at 9:29 PM

Malm was released in the 1980s: https://techvibeblog.com/what-is-ikea-malm-made-of/

Girl with the dragon tattoo was released in 2005

show 1 reply