Exotic names rarely stand the test of time. A Jimmy Rocket or a Fantasia Blue might be the stars at the children’s birthday party but when it comes to the application for the banking apprenticeship, the glitter of yesteryear has usually faded. We imagine the parents who named their daughters after the blonde dragon queen Daenerys Targaryen from the fantasy series Game of Thrones are now probably ruing their decision after watching the eighth and final season. And before you baptise your new-born Shiva, Kronos, or Cruach, you should consult Wikipedia and do some research on the child-eating monsters your offspring will be named after. Surprisingly, even Aston Martin has recently developed a taste for neopagan names. If the Vantage and Vanquish were a touch innocuous, the mythological big guns have now ascended – we’ve just learned Valhalla will follow Valkyrie. Ok, just 500 of the carbon-fibre hybrid hypercar, which was developed under the internal codename AM-RB 003, will be built. But still...
British motorists are not the first to be fascinated with ancient Norse mythology. Richard Wagner composed his famous ‘ride of the Valkyries’ and had the war heroes move into the Walhalla in the Götterdämmerung. And historically, conscious Europeans have a hard time forgetting that the prehistoric dramas of Norse and continental Germanic mythology were pretty en vogue in 1930s Germany when they were spiced up with misanthropic Nazi propaganda and incorporated into the fatal narrative of greater German omnipotence. At least Hollywood is good in suppressing the darker chapters of history: more recently, the fabric was remixed by Marvel for its superhero spectacle Thor. And even though Aston Martin’s new neopagan naming wrath today is more awkward than disturbing, we’re curious to see which hero the naming department will try next – the godfather Odin or perhaps the hammer thrower Thor? At least the scene of Ragnarøkkr, the last battle of the Götterdammerung in which the whole world comes to an end, is already set: the Aston Martin Valkyrie will ride into the night at Le Mans in 2021.
