takemetocoffin-or-losemeforever: The good side of pronouncing Lestat in the non-Germanic way is that you can make stupid puns with the determiner “les” in French. And that’s priceless.
More seriously, since I saw the movie before reading the books, I pronounce the final “T” of Lestat, while it’s usually not the case in French. So, theoretically, in modern French, the pronunciation would be something like “lesta”. But it sounds kinda silly, and there is an awful lot of exceptions to the “t” rule. Furthermore, “Lestat” hugely looks like the Occitan word “estat”, prononced “S-taT”. And guess where Occitan, an old language still used nowadays, is spoken? In south France, which include Auvergne. So, in a very twisted way, “LestaT” as an old french name is making sense. At least if you accept the idea that “the state” is a decent name for a person.
OuO very informative.
AR says it was a typo of Lestan, “Le,” French for “The,” + “Stan” for her husband, Stan Rice, and the typo with the “T” stuck. In a way, Uncle Lestan is actually how AR intended his name to be.
In canon, Lestat explains in Blackwood Farm that his name is just the first letters of his siblings’ names:
“What an unusual name, Lestat,” she returned. “Does it have a meaning?”
“None whatsoever, Madam,” Lestat answered. “If memory serves me right, and it does less and less, the name’s compounded of the first letter of each of my six older brothers’ names, all of whom – the brothers and their names – I grew up to cheerfully and vigorously despise.”
^This could work, but we only know one of his brother’s names, Augustin.
Discussing this with viaticumforthemarquise-archive… maybe Augustin (or one of Lestat’s brothers) told him that just to hurt his feelings, like “YOU ARE SO WORTHLESS THAT AT BIRTH OUR PARENTS COULD ONLY MUSTER THE CREATIVITY TO TAKE A LETTER FROM EACH OF OUR NAMES” *SLAPS*
Lestat: *screaming internally*
They told him this at a young age … and he never questioned it ;A;
I liked this headcanon for Lestat’s naming, by viaticumforthemarquise-archive.
I-want-my-IWTV 