Novelist Anne Rice created the aristocratic, arrogant vampire Lestat de Lioncourt for her 1976 debut novel Interview with the Vampire.
How did she come up with his name?
I’d thought Lestat was an old Louisiana name. I was so certain that I didn’t bother to look it up. I learned later that the name was actually Lestan. Was that a Freudian slip or what?
(Freudian slip because she’d based the character on her husband Stan.)
In late 1994, the movie adaptation of Interview with the Vampire was released. In the film, Lestat was played by actor Tom Cruise.
And in 1995, right on cue, the name Lestat debuted in the U.S. baby name data:
- 1997: 10 baby boys with the name Lestat
- 1996: 7 baby boys with the name Lestat
- 1995: 5 baby boys with the name Lestat [debut]
- 1994: unlisted
- 1993: unlisted
Since then, hundreds of U.S. baby boys have been named Lestat. And records show that many others got Lestat as a middle name.
What are your thoughts on the name Lestat?
Source: Kellerman, Stewart. “Other Incarnations of the Vampire Author.” New York Times 7 Nov. 1988, C15-16.
I like the name Lestan very much. I was able to trace it back to normandy (where there is a place called Lestanville) and the old english names Liodstan and Liofstan.
Very nice. And it ahs indeed the Louisianna connection.
I always wondered where she got Lestat from. I figured she must have been using a surname.