Character Names in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

About a month ago, I finished re-reading Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea for the first time (so now I've read it twice).  The day before I finished it, I finally realized the importance of the names that Verne gave his characters.  In Chapter XIX (The Gulf Stream) of Part Two, while Aronnax is talking with Captain Nemo about their "slavery" (as Aronnax calls it) on the Nautilus, he says that he (Aronnax) is willing to "live obscure in the frail hope of bequeathing one day, to future time, the result of my labors" but that Ned Land is different.  Throughout the book, Land is trying to get back to land or at the very least escape the Nautilus.  Aronnax then says that "Every man, worthy of the name, deserves some consideration."

What I don't understand here is whether Aronnax is saying that everyone worthy of being called a man deserves consideration or that Ned Land in particular deserves consideration because his last name is Land.  (It's probably the first one.)  Regardless, this sentence got me thinking about Ned Land's name and how it reflects his goal.  He's trying to get off the submarine, and his name reflects the very opposite of being under the sea - being on land.

Thinking about Ned Land's name then got me thinking about the names of the other characters, and I found similar reflections of disposition in Conseil and Captain Nemo's names.

In Chapter III (I Form My Resolution) of Part One, Aronnax says that "despite his name," Conseil "never giv[es] advice - even when asked for it."  In French, conseil means advice or counsel.  It's been about a month since I finished the book (and it wasn't until I was nearly finished reading it that I started thinking about this, so I wasn't looking for it in the earlier parts of the book), so I can't really speak as to whether Conseil "never" gives advice to Aronnax.  Still, he does accompany Aronnax for a large portion of the book.  When he is introduced in Chapter III, Aronnax explains that Conseil is a "true, devoted Flemish boy, who had accompanied me in all my travels."

After I got thinking about the names, I found more evidence for the accompaniment that Conseil embodies.  In the third sentence of Chapter XX (From Latitude 47° 24' to Longitude 17° 28') in Part Two, Aronnax remarks that during a storm, "Conseil and I, however, never left each other."

At the time I'd been reading Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, I'd been reading a Verne book every month: Around the World in 80 Days, From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon (published together), and Journey to the Center of the Earth from March to May (and I started Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea at the end of June).  In all of these books, Verne has pairs (or, in some books, trios) of characters so that via one character's scientific explanation to an-other, the reader can also gain an understand of what's going on.  While Conseil might not serve as a counsel to Aronnax, by Aronnax's explaining various underwater creatures and phenomena to the ever-present Conseil, the reader can understand a bit more of what's going on.  It makes it a little more interesting when that explanation is in dialogue instead of in the narration.  With this sort of function, Conseil does act as a sort of counsel, but he's a counsel to the reader instead of to Aronnax.

Captain Nemo also reflects his name.  Nemo is the Latin word for no one or nobody (which, interestingly, recalls Odysseus and his encounter with Polyphemus).  Captain Nemo has exiled himself from the world and travels around in the Nautilus, and his name mirrors his wish to be left alone.  In the aforementioned storm in Chapter XX, where Conseil accompanies Aronnax, Aronnax explains that Nemo "had isolated himself."

With these three character's names representing some aspect of themselves, I started to wonder whether Verne also did this to Pierre Aronnax, who is the only other major character, but I can't really find anything in Aronnax's name to suggest a particular quality.  Pierre might be a pun on pier and - through the nautical imagery that's prominent in the book - indicate Aronnax's importance of centrality as the narrator, but this neglects the fact that Verne wrote the book in French, a language in which that pun wouldn't work.

The only other thing I want to note after this reading of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea is a description of the Nautilus near the beginning of Chapter XIX (The Gulf Stream) in Part Two.  Aronnax writes that "the Nautilus did not keep on in its settled course; it floated about like a corpse at the will of the waves."  By itself, it's a morbid description, but especially so after considering the previous chapter, in which one of the Nautilus' men is killed in a battle with the poulps.  In a way, in likening the submarine to a corpse, Aronnax is describing how the death affected the vessel itself.