#jekyll bbc

Alice

The name derives from the Old French name Aalis, short for Adelais (x), which is a short form of the Germanic Adalheidis, better known as Adelaide (composed of  adal=noble and heid=kind/sort/type ... meaning noble type). The most prominent literary character with that name is Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland ... well known and repeatedly mentioned in connection with Sherlock BBC (x  x  x).

The very first person who comes to mind in Sherlock BBC is, of course, Lady Smallwood. This character is introduced as Lady Elizabeth in HLV but three episodes later, in TLD, her first name suddenly changes to Alicia. At least that’s what can be read on her business card. Additionally the lady shares some interesting similarities with Mummy Holmes (x  x).

When Sherlock walks among the ‘Funny Gravestones’ in TFP, on one of the stones the name Alice Holmes is engraved. Apparently this woman died together with another person (maybe husband, maybe sibling) in 1818, both at a rather young age. 

The name ‘Alice Holmes’ could very well be a reference to the lost and resurfaced silent movie ‘Sherlock Holmes’ from 1916, created by William Gillette who also starred in the leading role as the great detective. In this adaptation, based on the stage play of the same title and authorised by Arthur Conon Doyle himself, Gillette gave Holmes a love interest, shaped (very loosely) after Irene Adler. Doyle’s famous words "You may marry him, murder him, or do anything you like to him" derives from this adaptation. The love interest was renamed into Alice Faulkner .... which of course, would change into ‘Alice Holmes’ after a marriage (strongly suggested by the emotional film-kiss at the end of the story). 

In October 2014 it was announced that a copy of that film had been discovered in a film archive in France. The French premiere of the restored film took place in January 2015, the US premiere followed in May. Among the patrons of the restauration are listed Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue. 

For more detailed informations I can highly recommend this post by @heimishtheidealhusband .

Claire

This name is the French version of Clara .... and, although she has never appeared on screen so far, Clara is a frequently discussed character in Sherlock BBC because she is (most likely still) married to John Watson’s (equally invisible) sister Harry.

Clara and Harry split up three months ago and they’re getting a divorce.

Clara is part of Sherlock’s deductions regarding John’s phone in PILOT/ASIP, based on Holmes’ famous pocket watch deduction in ACDs novel The Sign of Four. As @shylockgnomes already pointed out in 2016 ('A high incidence of Katherines’) the name Clara (bright, clear, clean, pure) basically has the same meaning as Catherine. 

In the early Christian era it became associated with the Greek ‘katharos’ (pure), and the Latin spelling was changed from Katerina to Katharina to reflect this.

Clara could very well be a Catherine hiding in plain sight, one might say. Reason enough to take more than one look at her, because the name Catherine (in a number of variations) turns up eight times throughout the whole story ... nine times if one counts CAT, the gun in HLV (a brand of that name doesn’t even exist). To sum it up once more:

Clara, John’s sister in law (ASIP)

Karen, the woman murdered by her boyfriend/husband Barry ‘Bezza’ Berwick in Minsk (TGG)

Kate, Irene’s PA (ASIB)

Kitty Riley, investigative journalist for the SUN who wrote the exposé about Sherlock (TRF)

Cath, Mary’s briefly mentioned friend (TEH)

Kate Whitney, the desperate mum of a drug addict who wants to find her son (HLV)

CAT, the gun which Sherlock assumes to be the weapon used to murder him (HLV)

Helen Catherine Driscoll, underaged pen pal of Lord Smallwood before his marriage with Elizabeth/Alicia and reason for his suicide (HLV)

Catherine - the name John would like to give to his daughter but Mary disagrees and chooses Rosamund instead (TST)

As @shylockgnomes​ pointed out in the above mentioned post from 2016, the etymology of the name ‘Katherine’ can be debated: it could also derive from the Greek name Hekaterine, which comes from hekateros ... meaning “each of the two”.

But what does that imply? Two of something? But it’s ‘never twins’  Did I accidentally stumble upon a hidden secret? A girl or woman who is hidden. One of a pair? To paraphrase Sherlock    (shylockgnomes)

And then Series Four happened and Eurus entered the stage in TFP and puzzle pieces started to fall into place. It looks like you really stumbled right into the centre of the mystery, @shylockgnomes​  :)  Because in Sherlock BBC the meaning of two/double/pair/twin seems to be a key factor in understanding the story (PairsTwinsDoubleOhhhs)

Each of the two main characters have sisters who are mistaken for brothers by the respective other man when they are first mentioned in their presence. 

JOHN: Harry and me don’t get on, never have. Clara and Harry split up three months ago and they’re getting a divorce; and Harry is a drinker. SHERLOCK: Spot on, then. I didn’t expect to be right about everything. JOHN: And Harry’s short for Harriet.  (ASIP)

.....

JOHN: Sherlock’s not your only brother. There’s another one, isn’t there? MYCROFT: No. JOHN: Jesus! A secret brother! What, is he locked up in a tower or something? (TLD)

Each of the two sisters have male names. Harriet was shortened into Harry (the name of Dr John Watson’s brother in canon) and Eurus is the Greek name of the God of the East Wind, who is very male as @gosherlocked​ pointed out here.

Each of the two sisters stay invisible for the majority of the story. Eurus appears only by the end of the (for now) penultimate episode. Harry is still a faceless presence and exists on screen only in short references. A good place to remember Mycroft’s advice in The Sign of Three:

SHERLOCK: For one person to be in both groups ... could be a coincidence. MYCROFT: Oh, Sherlock. What do we say about coincidence? SHERLOCK: The universe is rarely so lazy.

Two problematic sisters who are both called by a male name, who appear rarely or not at all on screen and are mistaken for a brother by the best friend of their sibling. And one of those sisters is (maybe still) married to a woman called Clara ... meaning ‘bright, clear, pure, (incandescent?) .... the same as Catherine ... which might also mean ‘each of the two’. What would the universe say to this case?

Alice, Claire & Catherine

In Jekyll BBC everything circles around the characters Alice and Claire. It’s not some mysterious potion ... it’s the potion of love, the chemistry of love, which rises Hyde, the ‘monster’, in Jekyll. “It's you, it’s all about you ....”

Alice, Clara, Catherine (different versions and meanings of this name) seem to play an important, though still mysterious, role in Sherlock BBC. And what's the main theme of this story? In TFP Mycroft says: “This is all about you (Sherlock). Everything here  ...... So who loves you?”

This leaves Dracula BBC. Are there characters included in that story too, named Alice, Clara or Catherine?  Unsurprisingly .... yes! There are Alice and Kathleen (a variation of Catherine). Both characters appear in The Dark Compass.

Alice is one of the girls who accompany Lucy Westenra in the pink limousine on her hen night. She sits opposite Lucy, next to Zev. Alice is the only one of the girls who, like Zev, interacts repeatedly with Lucy. 

Kathleen is the wife/life partner of Bob, the man who gets bitten and locked up in the fridge by Dracula. The Count watches a movie about elephants in Kathleen’s house before Zoe Van Helsing and her team are able to take him captive. 

 And then there is the Dracula-canon ‘Catherine’ ...  she’s a ship

There we find that only one Black-Sea-bound ship go out with the tide. She is the Czarina Catherine, and she sail from Doolittle’s Wharf for Varna, and thence on to other parts and up the Danube.  (Bram Stoker’s Dracula)

Czarina is the female version of Czar, the Russian equivalent of Emperor, derived from the Roman ‘Caesar’. This ship can only be named after the famous Russian Empress Catherine the Great.

Count Dracula travels on the Demeter from Varna (Bulgaria) to England and then, after his plans faile, he boards the Czarina Catherine in London. This ship brings the vampire back to Galatz (Galati) in Romania. That’s a port town on the Danube about 80km from the Black Sea. From here he tries to return to his castle in Transylvania. 

And that’s exactly the point where the stories told in Bram Stoker’s Dracula und in Dracula BBC are linked. In the original story the ‘Czarina Catherine’ brings Dracula to the mouth of the Danube  from which the Count takes the same escape route as Jonathan Harker in Dracula BBC. They travel in opposite directions though. Bram Stoker’s Dracula flees from the sea TO the castle while Jonathan Harker falls into the river and is born FROM the castle to the sea. Two characters ... one escape route. (‘The river bore you out to the sea’)

It’s a hidden link. One becomes only aware of it, if one knows the original story. Therefore it might not be a very relevant link after all. Who knows. But surely, there are people in this world who simply are in love with a certain type of story which they tell over and over again and who also have a great affinity for certain names. :)