Nolan Fans

Arthur - Arthur Escher, M.C. Escher's second son.

Fischer - Adrian Fisher, Maze Designer.

Eames - Charles and Ray Eames, Designers and Filmmakers. Made a film about spinning tops.

Saito - Ryoei Saito, honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company. Had a taste for expensive paintings.

Cobb - Jacob from the Bible.

Ariadne - Ariadne from the Minotaur myth.

Mal - Mallory, meaning "unlucky" or "unfortunate".

Yusuf - Yusuf from Qu'ran.

Maurice Fischer - Maurits Cornelis Escher.

@The_Maestro,

Interesting list, although you missed the children: James and Philip were Christian apostles and are sensibly found building their castles on the cliff rather than the beach (Matthew 7.24). I'd be curious how you made the connection between Arthur and Escher. The only connection I can think of is the Penrose staircase.

It makes sense though. A copy of the shooting script associates a painting by Francis Bacon with Arthur in the opening dream sequence. And since Bacon is associated with empiricism, rationality and the scientific method, it reinforces Arthur as the rational rather than emotional (Eames) one. Details?

trevelyan wrote:@The_Maestro,

Interesting list, although you missed the children: James and Philip were Christian apostles and are sensibly found building their castles on the cliff rather than the beach (Matthew 7.24). I'd be curious how you made the connection between Arthur and Escher. The only connection I can think of is the Penrose staircase.

It makes sense though. A copy of the shooting script associates a painting by Francis Bacon with Arthur in the opening dream sequence. And since Bacon is associated with empiricism, rationality and the scientific method, it reinforces Arthur as the rational rather than emotional (Eames) one. Details?

i always found Arthur's reasoning to be inductive in contrast to Eames.. who naturally takes a deductive approach (his imagination
takes the general idea and translates it into one specific relationship..)

Just a thought - as in The Prestige Angier's and Borden's names sound to close to anger and burden respectively (and have relation to the role and fate of both characters), Dom sounds pretty close to dome (that isolates the object for inception), Eams might be an anagramm to "seam"

Interpretations of my own:

Obvious Ariadne is the name made most popular with Theseus's minotaur situation and her helping him out of the maze, with Ariadne in this film doing something similar for Cobb. But it also means "most holy". You can view this to mean that she's the most innocent of the crew, or she's the most important person to Cobb in his journey.

Cobb. Means "large man", somewhat appropriate for a team leader. Also Cobweb, which is basically what his mind is.

Eames is trickier, it means "son of the uncle". Meaning Nephew. He's the less mature counterpart to Arthur, who is like a brother to Cobb. He's like the more reckless and more humorous son of Arthur.

Speaking of Arthur, it means "strong as a bear", certainly appropriate for how he does in the hotel section.

Saito has the meaning of "adjusted", meaningful for the promises he makes and the power he has to make anything happen. Not to mention keeping his sanity despite what happened.