Title
According to David Eagleman, Nabokov named the title character in part after his favorite butterfly. An avid collector of butterflies, Nabokov was especially fond of one species with yellow wings and a black body. As a synesthete, he associated colors with each letter; A was connected to yellow, and D to black. Thus he saw a reflection of his favorite butterfly (yellow-black-yellow) in the name Ada. This also makes sense because Ada wants to be a lepidopterist in the book.
"Ada" is also pun, a homophone, for "Ardor." Marina, Ada's mother, pronounces her name with "long, deep" Russian "A"s, which is how a Russian would say the word "Ardor".
Read more about this topic: Ada Or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
Famous quotes containing the word title:
“The title wise is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one be a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other men?—if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Now that the steam engine rules the world, a title is an absurdity, still I am all dressed up in this title. It will crush me if I do not support it. The title attracts attention to myself.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“Et in Arcadia ego.
[I too am in Arcadia.]”
—Anonymous, Anonymous.
Tomb inscription, appearing in classical paintings by Guercino and Poussin, among others. The words probably mean that even the most ideal earthly lives are mortal. Arcadia, a mountainous region in the central Peloponnese, Greece, was the rustic abode of Pan, depicted in literature and art as a land of innocence and ease, and was the title of Sir Philip Sidney’s pastoral romance (1590)