Angel of Thursday

Castiel

I love Castiel’s name. I love the way it sounds. I love that it isn’t a well known angel name. Even Metatron is a more well known angel then Castiel. I also love the meaning behind it. What I don’t love are the non-researched myths that this fandom spreads about Castiel’s name. So I am going to clear some things up.

Castiel is not based on Cassiel 

I think this myth started with the writer’s spelling Cas as “Cass.” For this reason I kinda wish Cas was based on Cassiel because that would explain where that second “s” came from. This myth was perpetuated when someone, from this fandom probably, put Supernatural references in the article for Cassiel on Wikipedia.   If you look at the article now you won’t find these references. In fact I am pretty sure the whole article has been rewritten since then. It used to look like this:

 Wikipedia articles are not always factually accurate but It’s very easy to tell what parts are factual because they will be followed by a little number. This little number is a reference to the sources for the article. Please notice that after the sentence “In some cultures they say that he must fall in love with “the righteous man” and that he is one of the rare angel to develop human emotions” there is no reference back to an original source. It’s also a horrible sentence.  I don’t know how long exactly the article was like this but the references circled above were copied on to several blogs and these were taken as “facts” without looking for any sources. So I went looking. All I found besides peoples blogs and pictures created by this fandom. And this page on a website.  This page also offers no sources and it copies the sentence from the Wikipedia article almost word for word. (I am sorry @woahthisguy I really couldn’t find any sources to collaborate that this was anything other then someone had fun with Wikipedia one day) 

Okay so what about just Castiel’s name being based on Cassiel but with a silight change to make it unique?  

“We were airing on Thursdays & needed a new character name. I googled “Angel of Thursday” (for luck): got Castiel” -Eric Kripke    

Castiel was based on the angel Castiel not Cassiel. If you google “Angel of Thursday” now all of the results are about the character on Supernatural. So where did Castiel’s name come from? It came from a book actually and it’s not the Bible.  There are only five angels named in the Bible:  Abaddon, Beelzebul, Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer. And many people think that Beelzebul and Lucifer are actually the same angel so that brings us down to four. Most angel names come from books written after the bible.  Heptameron, or Magical Elements by Peter de Abano was published in Latin in the year 1496 as a handbook of ritual magic to summon angels. The angels listed are separated by the days of the week. Castiel is one of the angels of Thursday along with Sachiel and Asasiel. I believe this is what Eric Kripke came across in his google search and of those names picked Castiel. 

So now we know where Castiel’s name came from. I would like to talk about what Castiel means because that has another fandom myth attached to it.

Castiel does not mean “to fall from God”

You may have heard that Castiel means “to fall from God.” The post pictured above is just an example I have no idea where this myth started but they clearly don’t know anything about angel names or Latin. Angel names are not Latin and never are Latin. Angel names are Hebrew Theophory. Theophory is inserting the name of a deity into a proper name. That’s where the “el” comes from. El is a general word for God and power but it’s Hebrew not Latin and it’s a shortened version of Elohim. God in Latin is Deus. Even if Castiel was some kinda weird bastardization of Latin and Hebrew it would still be wrong because “to fall” in Latin is not “Cas” it’s Cadere. So I really don’t know how someone came up with this because it is quite the stretch. Now in Hebrew Theophory because these are names their meaning is not an exact translation also angel names often have several different romanizations. Making any meaning for the name Castiel very hard to collaborate. Castiel is listed on a Wikipedia list of angel names as meaning “shield of god.” Now I have reason to believe this because these are simply a list of meanings and it is not linked to the Supernatural character’s article so I don’t think a fan of the show added it. I have seen another Hebrew Theophory meaning for Castiel as “my cover is God.” Covering something and shielding it are very close to the same meaning.  The “is God” and “of God” both come from the “el” part depending on the word it’s being added to. So this is another reason for me to believe that “shield of God” is an actual meaning of Castiel and it is possible that “my cover is God” is also a correct meaning.  

I think “shield of God” is a very appropriate meaning for the name Castiel.