capitolspy:

Finnick is a portmanteau meant to evoke commonalities of traditional Irish naming. It is a conjunction of “fin,” for District Four’s ocean/fishing specialty, and “nick” or Nicholas, meaning “Victory Of The People.”

Odair is a play on Adair, a Scotch-Gaelic name meaning “happy spear” (like his trident!) but also likely takes origin in the name of Odysseus (The Odyssey).

Finnick’s arc in The Hunger Games series almost perfectly mirrors Odysseus’ journey over the course of the Illiad and Odyssey: he is victorious in battle (the Games) but is not allowed to fully return home to his weak wife; he has to escape the alleged paradise of the island of the Lotus Eaters (the Capitol) and is threatened by the Laistrygones and evil witch-queen Circe (Snow); he is forced to endure and must escape the sexual perversions of the Sirens (Capitol citizens, his forced sex slavery); try to make his way home trapped between the monsters of Scylla and Charybdis (basically he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t); and go to Hades and back to be able to find his wife again (likely, the Quarter Quell and the retrieval of Annie from the Capitol).

Something interesting to think about!

- MW