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:
“There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every mans title to fame. Only those books come down which deserve to last.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“All his works might well enough be embraced under the title of one of them, a good specimen brick, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. Of this department he is the Chief Professor in the Worlds University, and even leaves Plutarch behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“The End?”
—Theodore Simonson. Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.. End title card, The Blob, printed on screen at the end of the movie (1958)