Apparently Angron was named after the landlord of the local pub they drank in while coming up with the concept of 40k. His name was Ron and he was always shouting and bashing things so they called him angry Ron.

I grew up in Nottingham, closest GW being Warhammer World. As a throne city kids, we knew the legend of ‘Angry Ron’ who was a grumpy bouncer known around the city in the 80s/90s. Apparently, that’s where Angron derives his name.

Playing the XIX legion you know the Raven Raven joke is always a heartbeat away. At least the legion doesn’t lean into it as much as the Space Wolves do, wolfing everything and everyone.

"Lion still means lion, but forests are called johnsons?" I almost died laughing, especially due to way you said it. Fun fact about Rogal Dorn. "Rogal" (or diminutive "rogalik") means "croissant" in polish, though I highly doubt, it's a reference. 16:58 personally I would absolutely love more such videos.

Also Magnus is totally Odin, and I've alwas felt that there's strong nordic connection there. Magnus, while latin name, is pretty popular name in Scandinavian countries, and Magnus sacrificed his eye for knowledge/power, which is pretty dang Odin. Maybe Leman was annoyed that Magnus was coming on his turf.

Another reference about Fulgrim, the purple color of his legion´s armor and the purple dye of the ancient Phoenicians: The color was called also : "Imperial or Royal Purple" and was so expensive, that only the emperors of Rome and later the Byzantine Empire & the members of their imperial courts could afford to dye their clothes with it. It was made from a very rare species of sea snail, found in the Mediterrenean Sea. Makes sense that the "Emperor´s Children" are wearing "imperial purple" as their colors.

In relation to Konrad Cruze, there’s a line in Heart of Darkness that goes “Serve him right! Transgression-punishment- bang! Pitiless, pitiless! That’s the only way!” Sounds like Night Haunter’s philosophy to me 😂

In regard to Horus Lupercal: you mentioned the wolf's cave and the link to Romulus and Remus. What you didn't mention, however, is that Romulus slew his brother Remus in a fit of rage, which is fitting for the Great Heretic.

FUL in Swedish means UGLY and GRIM in danish means UGLY, so I think it would be funny if the name FULGRIM was a amalgamation between those two words. Especially since he’s known for being a beautiful Primark 😅

The two scientists who first developed Ultramarine synthetic pigment were called Jean-Baptiste Guimet and Christian Gmelin. It’s very possible that GW put their names together as the founder of the Ultramarine legion

You know, the Dark Angels always bugged me. As you pointed out, every loyalist legion had traitor elements; the Dark Angels tying themselves into knots about hiding their 'shame' always felt weird and silly. Knowing more about Lionel Jonson's really quite tragic self-loathing, and how that ties in thematically, genuinely makes me find the legion/chapter more interesting. Great video.

I would love to see what you can find on the names of the chaos gods. I had accidentally stumbled on Nergal, a Mesopotamian God of death and disease.

This was one of those subjects I'd always meant to look into but never gotten around to, you know? Great content, man, keep up the good work.

The most important parallel between lorgar and Urizen is that Urizen is almost this tragic figure for creating the "original sin" of life in a physical plane. He is then left to helplessly watch his kingdom play out into its inevitable destruction trapping him in the Mortal plane, unable to stop it from falling apart. At least that's my very basic, sm0l brain understanding of it anyway, and seems to basically mirror lorgars story to some extent. Also Urizen and the book he comes from serves as Blakes criticism against the dogmatism of religion.

Aurelian was also the name of the Roman emperor from 270-275 ad who, aside from being a complete badass (unlike Lorgar) established a new mono theistic religion as the primary religion of Rome during his reign. That religion worshipped Sol Invictus, the invincible sun, a warrior god who brought light to the world through warfare and also is argued to have paved the way for Christianity, the final religion of Rome, to be accepted as monotheism wasn't really a thing in Rome prior to Aurelian's reign. There is a LOT to unpack there in terms of the similarities with Lorgar.

ooooh I can expand on Perturabo a little more! Crowley gained the moniker of Perdurabo as a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation which operated out of 36 Blythe Road, in West London. I have little doubt that the founders of Games Workshop would be aware of this, given that the company was founded out of a flat at 15 Bolingbroke Road, an 8 minute walk to the north, in Shepards Bush (through some very lovely terraced streets.). Why is this relevant? Well, there’s a big exhibition centre literally around the corner from the original headquarters of the HOotGD. Kensington Olympia.

Ferrus Manus being "The Gorgon" could also be a reference to the classic D&D monster (the bull with metallic skin and breath attack). (Which a quick googling tells me may have been inspired by Edward Topsell's 1607 book 'The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes'.)

Also for Sanguinius the word 'sanguinary': causing bloodshed. I guess his name is a play on both sanguine and sanguinary given the duality of his character. Good natured / capable of tremendous violence.

I have never wanted anything more than Arbitor Ian explaining the real world references of 40k lore. ❤

While the name Angron is an obvious play on 'Anger', it is also possible that his name is also derived from the Greek word Agrion, which translates to 'Wild', or even Agron, the Gallic word for 'Slaughter'. Perfectly fitting terms for Angron and especially his overall disposition.

Yes please! More of this. It’s fun to see the inspiration of 40K lore. It really goes to show that, despite the grim dark nature of the lore, so much is rooted in, sometimes, tongue and cheek references.

You gotta wonder if *Sanguinius,* *Perturabo* and *Alpharion* ever felt a bit sheepish introducing themselves alongside *Lionel, Conrad* and *Robert.*

Interesting fact about Lorgar. His other name, Aurelian, is a reference to a Roman emperor of the same name who proliferated the cult of Sol/Sun, or Sol Invictus as he was styled in later days of the Empire. Now I don't think its a stretch to connect the Emperor in 40k with this diety since in the book Saturnine of the Siege of Terra series he was described by Erda as having many names throughout the history, one of those being Mithras (another Perso-Roman diety which was closely associated and integrated to some extent with the worship of Sol). Hence, Lorgar resembles his real life counterpart in that he was pious, try to deify the Emperor or the Sun and make a cult around him, plus the whole Lectitio Diviniatus thing. Some may disagree with these paralels but I see what writers intended when they gave Lorgar this name. Plus Aurelian means golden so another reference to the Big E?

Magnus, perhaps ironically, has always reminded me of Odin. The one-eyed god of magic

I would love to see one of these on the inspirations of the famous Gaurd regiments.

I suppose “the Gorgon of Medusa” also works out as a name for a guy who gets beheaded

for Mortarion, -arion in ancient greek is a diminutive suffix. I had always thought that beside the obvious images of death the the reaper they were also throwing a wrench in it or an easter egg by naming him "little death" which is a reference to weakening of consciousness and losing a part of yourself but at the same time a reference to post-orgasm sensation, which idk, nurglites might get from disease ?

One more interesting bit about the Alpha Legion. In WWII, the British and Americans decided early on that they wanted the D-Day invasion to hit the Germans as a surprise. The man they relied on to accomplish this was Juan Garcia, a Spanish double-agent who went by the codename Garbo. Garbo did such a thorough job misleading and confusing the Nazi command that even after soldiers were setting up bases on the beaches of Normandy, some German generals still thought the "real" invasion was about to arrive as far away as Calais. Garbo's team of spies went by the codename "The Twenty Committee." The inside joke here is that 20 in roman numerals is XX, or in other words, "double cross." The Alpha Legion are Legion XX. They're double-crossers.

I've been into Warhammer and its lore since the late 90s when I got my first box set as a kid and I actually never even thought about the Primarch naming conventions/origins. Several of them are pretty easy connections to make, but I had no idea about the Dark Angel poem or the origin of the Urizen title. Thank you for this Warhammer-adjacent history lesson, really enjoyed it.

Here's a little personnal theory with Magnus the Red. His real world reference is Odin. Magnus is a somewhat popular name in Scandinavia after it was introduced there in reference to Charlemagne, Carolus Magnus. The epithet "the Red" also is somewhat common in the sagas if you think about Eric the Red and one or two more i think. The Red usually was a reference to hair color which fits old Magnus lore. Plus, both Magnus and Odin are known for being powerful sorcerers, both giving an eye in exchange of the knowledge. I wouldn't be surprised if that was common theory, i just haven't looked around to see if other people thought the same. For Prospero being space Egypt, it works well with the fact that it ended up burning with all its knowledge, just like the Library of Alexandria.

This is exactly the sort of 40k content I want to see.

I can't imagine Perturabo name origin is this complex. Make me like the bastard even more

The way Konrad Curze ruled Nostramo is also an unsubtle parallel to the historical figure Vlad the Impaler.

As someone who knew about half of these already (either from 40k or already knowing about the name) and having presumably the same education/ cultural frame of reference/interests as the people writing 40k XD This was deeply satisfying to me, thank you

Dont mean to offend anyone here but you and bricky are genuinely the only 40k content creators i can watch. You guys are superb and for someone who has only been into 40k for a month ive learned too much from yall! Keep it up!

Be interesting to see your take on Eldar along these lines. The big Craftworlds are definitely named after pagan festivals - Samhain, Beltane, etc. - so there's probably more interesting stuff lurking waiting to be uncovered, especially with their heavy leaning towards 70s science-fantasy space elves.

As far as I know, Angron is named after "Angry" Ron the doorman at the local pub/gay club "The Rock"

It's a shame more of them weren't careful allusions with lots of detail. Would love to see a similar breakdown for other references.

I have this idea that Magnus might be a reference to Hermes Trismegistus, the Greek-Egyptian god of magic (Egyption because Trismesgistos was a byname of Thoth). Trismegistus means "thrice great" - so there is an element of "Magnus" from an egyptian source, if you squint your eyes a bit.

My favorite fact about the irl Lionel Johnson comes from Alberto Manguel's "The Library at Night," "The English poet Lionel Johnson was so pressed for room [to store his book collection] that he devised shelves suspended from the ceiling like chandeliers."

Some additions: - The Dark Angels & Thousand Sons: especially relevant to the recent return of the Lion, and his ‘forestwalking ability’, is the core of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, in which they tell the story of the Wizard Prospero (yup) who - after an assassination attempt by his brother (Russ) - flees to a very small island (hello new planet of the 1k sons). There he learns magic and uses his wizard-skills to manipulate the people that live there. On the island he is the master of Caliban (yes) and Ariel. Here comes the cool part: he finds Caliban as a sort of ‘wild child’ in the forest. (origin story of the Lion). Caliban also is a descendant of the witch Sycorax (the Emperor), who happens to be the rightful ruler of the island (again: the Emperor) where ‘The Tempest’ (ruinstorm/warp) takes place. The most interesting part for the new novel is that Shakespeare names Caliban as the ‘only one who grows in the storm’, eventually becoming literate, yet still disagreeing with his fate on a very instinctive and primal level. (so: he is the only one who actually is able to benefit from the warp, without it turning on him, because his 'wild child-origin' makes him the opposite of the wizard, who can be tempted by knowledge). Lastly: the wizard Prospero’s favorite saying is: ‘I’ll be wiser hereafter’ - which is a direct connection to the 1k sons and Magnus’ obsession with acquiring knowledge, as well as the ‘Changer of Ways’. In turn, the character of Prospero is rumored to have been inspired by John Dee, astronomer / astrologian and wizard to the court of Elizabeth the Ist of England. (similar to the role of Magnus towards the Emperor). - For Rogal Dorn, have a look at: Major General Earl van Dorn (historic commander, confederate cavalry). What gave it away? Well, this ‘Dorn’ was shot in his wrist (of all places) by Native Americans and was subsequently given command of the garrisons of two forts below New Orleans on the Missisipi River, as well as the Departement of Texas to capture and secure resources that belonged to the US Army. - The story of (Egyptian) Horus actually features a pretty strange part that is quite similar to the ‘geneseed’ used for the Space Marines. Also: have a look at both Horus’s, because you have ‘Horus the younger’ and ‘the elder’, who are quite different characters. (similar to Horus’s change). - Lorgar: about Urizen is written ‘ He believes himself holy (yep) and he sets about establishing various sins in a book (hello book of Lorgar) of brass (yep) that serves as a combination of various laws as discovered by Newton, given to Moses, and the general concept of deism, which force uniformity upon mankind. The rest of the Eternals in turn become indignant at Urizen turning against eternity, and they instill these essences of sin within Urizen's creation. (…) also: Urizen features the figure of ‘Orc’, a fallen entity. About which: Symbolically, the Orc cycle describes how Urizen and Orc are part of one unified whole with Urizen representing the destructive and older essence while Orc is the young and creative essence.’ (essentially: order and chaos)

I heard somewhere that Angron name has a little story. The writers apparently frequented a bar with a doorman named Jon. They found home kinda short tempered and so referred to him as "Angry Jon". They felt kind of bad for representing a person they knew in the real world as a pretty evil functional character but they where beyond the point of no return on the characters and their names

Fun fact, Lupa is not only the word for she-wolf, but also Latin slang for a prostitute. So, purely linguistically, an alternate interpretation of the story is that some random lady of the night found two babies by the Tiber and brought them up As for Korax, his name is not just scientific for raven, but also just the Latin (Corvus) and Ancient Greek (κοράξ) words for raven. His name is literally Raven Raven of the Raven Guard

I always figured Lorgar was just “Lore”+”gar” (Gar has an old English root meaning “spear”, you still see it in names like Edgar…)

Small tidbit about salamanders (the real world ones, not the Space Marines) that I learned recently: The belief that they are immune to - or made from - fire stems from the fact, that they like to spend the winter months in damp, dark places to hibernate, essentially. The winter months are also where people used to warm their homes with fire... by burning logs... which were stored outside and were damp and dark due to getting wet and being stacked. So from time to time a poor little salamander would be woken up by their winter home going up in flames, scurry out of the fire in fear of their life and people would go "Oooh, see! Another one born from the flames. This year will be a good harvest..." or something along those lines.

One of my favourite myths is that Angron was named after a well known angry club bouncer nicknamed “Angry Ron”.

Maybe Magnus the Red, is just "The Big Red Button", which can be pressed in an emergency. Might hint to him being able to reset the narrative re: golden throne etc

another fulgrim connection: chemos(h) was the name of a canaanite deity, and the phoenicians were canaanites

I really like the parts where you say when particular name or concept appeared in the lore for the frst time. Usually wikis show just the current canon. Considering how some of the names show to be more thought out than other, it would be interesting to check when each of them appeared.

Videos like this add a level of enrichment to the 40k experience not much else can. Thanks for dedicating the time and effort to this sort of content!

Loved this and would very much like to see more like it

My favorite is Ferrus Manus the Iron Handed, who rules his legion the Iron Hands, with Iron Hands, from his ship the Iron Hand.

Wow I'm truly amazed,, as you pointed out, the distance in depth between Lion El and Angron. Im all for it, Love an arena of art where both silly and deep coexist, It feels welcoming imo. Also Really great video, Im thankful for your channel and work friend!

And then we just call them stuff like Peter Turbo, Rowboat Girlyman, Morty, Speedking and let's not forget: Batman.

You missed the iron hands Gorgon reference. They’re all turning to iron.

I would love a video like this about some of the more well-know IG regiments. It could probably double as a bit of an introduction to each in-universe too, two vids with one stone!

There's an audio recording of Aleister Crowley floating around the internet. The amusing part of hearing it is realizing that he had a voice that made Curly Howard sound like a leading man.

Lorgar- the Logos is the "word". He is the Word Bearer, head of the legion, "the Imperial Heralds". It isn't ironic, it's a direct metaphor. Lion El' Jonson- Lion son of the Forest. Great job referencing the 2nd and 3rd layers with Lionel Johnson. Jagatai Khan, soon to "the Great Khan" (Genghis/Emperor). Great parallel. Perturabo- Alistair Crawley was also the founder of his own Luciferian Church, the Gnostic Catholic Church, which is dedicated to the finding of secret, occult, spells (like Perturabo in his becoming a daemon primarch) and sex magic. Kind of disturbing really. Excellent video!

I thought this was going to be about the in-lore reason they got their names, but this is so much better! I am especially thrown by Lion El Johnson; it makes some serious subtext to the Lion's relationship with Luthor I now wonder might have been more intentional. I would definitely love to see more videos like this! Great work!

I love how Robute Guilliman, the most important figure in the current setting of 40k, is just named after a random French guy

The Primarch's names mostly give me the feeling that a group of inspired your people really just wanted to create something cool. Some are careful allusions, others simply follow the rule of cool. Today that would be seen as to gaudy but that's exactly how I like it.

I have always loved that Agron is basically because he is angry and possibly called ron :)

To muddy the waters a bit, the Dark Angels use a ton of imagery from Thelema, most notably the unicursal hexagram.

Absolutely storming video, damn near choked up a lung at the 'Johnson/Forest' section and so brutally accurate about deadlines and naming conventions.

Actually Angron was named after "Angry Ron". He was a local bouncer who was famous for having a short temper and an actual piece of archeotech jammed into his cerebral cortex. Art imitates life, so they say.

I'll be honest, thought myself that their curious lack of unified designs was indeed because when the game got develloped each one came from a develloper being said 'we need a space marine army with a leader, make one without talking to the rest'.

Man, watching this video gave me such a big nostalgia hit for my formative days learning about 40 back in the early aughts. We would sit and endlessly geek out on message boards over references in Primarch names and shit like the Star Child and what not. Anyways, one thing we kept mentioning about Fulgrim back then, was how the name is composed of two Scandi words for 'ugly': "Ful" (Swedish) and "Grim" more generally. It was kinda funny to imagine that the name of the prettiest and most vain Primarch was somehow intended to mean "Ugly-ugly" (even if that probably never was the intention).

More Historical lore of 40k please. Really just more, your work here is truly amazing. Slow clap to you sir, Slow clap to you.

I think it's interesting that the Space Wolves operate much like the Varangian Guard did for the Emperors of Constantinople, fearless, rambunctious, fiercely loyal, and terrifying shock troops of the Byzantine Armies. They'd often be used to execute orders both no one else would or could, tying into the Space Wolves being used as the Emperor's executioners so much as to wiping out one of the two lost legions and eventually destroying Prospero as well.

Hats off to one of the more unique and interesting 40 K video on KZfaq. I find myself returning to this every so often to give it another listen through. Again excellent work.

Forests are called "Johnsons" because they've got wood.

I feel like the Dark Angels should all get another special organ now. Also, Angron needs to officially open an pub.

Absolutely more videos about references to all things in 40k!

"Someone had a deadline to hit". Brilliant. I honestly feel we 40k lore buffs should pause and recite this every time we find something dumb or nonsensical in the lore. Thank you Ian, for devising a simple mantra to reduce anger and confusion amongst 40k fans. I will be nominating you for a nobel prize in the field of reducing arguments in youtube comments sections. Great video as always

I had heard somewhere that lion means other things instead of just lion. One that I heard was lion can translates to son so lion el’jonsons name would translate to “son of the forest”

It'd be interesting to pinpoint when Horus became Horus Lupercal. I'm pretty sure he didn't have the Lupercal moniker up until later in GW's history.

Back in the 90s we were told that Roboute Guilliman was just the French version of Robert Williams an 1950s civil rights activist.

Fun fact, back when there was games day in Birmingham, in the 90s I went to one and the designers where there doing autographs and answering questions, so I asked them, how did you decide which legions would be traitor? And I think it was jervis johnson, who said they rolled a D20 to decide which would be loyal/traitor, then later decided to scrub 2 for players to make their own

fulgrim is also super fast, so maybe lighting speed...also remember he was supposed to land jaghata's world... so maybe its a reference to that?

Fulgrim’s name as somebody else once pointed out is a combination of two words, Ful and Grim, Ful being Swedish for ugly and Grim being Danish for ugly. Foreshadowing about the kind of person he would become, perhaps?

"-Those purple guys" is how I will refer to emperor's children and "blood guys" for the blood angels from this time onward. Thank you.

Awesome video. Had no idea about all the literature and occult stuff. Very informative video. Keep up the good work.

I just wanted to tell Ian "thank you" for being concise, interesting and down to earth in your descriptions of the universe and facets of Warhammer 40k. Longtime fame of the setting (although sadly never played the tabletop game), I had lost touch with this years ago. I rediscovered it a few years ago with the video game Inquisitor, but that felt more like a Diablo clone than I had hoped for. When I found your channel I subscribed after the 2nd video I watched! This was directly due to your friendly, detailed discussions showing both the good and not so good sides of the universe as well as your deep dives into the lore. Watching all the lore videos will be a great way to start my New Year!

An odd video I'd love too see is all (or most) of the refrences 40k has to stuff like Monty Python like the Black Templars' holy orb or the quote 'Blessed are the gunmakers'

I don't know if many (or any) of the Eldar names (Khaine, Eldanesh, Isha etc.) are based on real-world references, if so it would be great to see a video with a breakdown of them! Great video as always :)

I always hoped that Angron was in part a reference to an angon - the Germanic javelin of the early medieval period, combined with angry Of course being from Notts myself there was always the legend that it came from a local Angry Ron There’s also the Castle Rock connection too for the Dark Angels

Pretty much perfect for Warhammer that there's really intricate and serious namesakes mixed together with goofy 'Angron is Angry' nonsense. Like how there's planets in the lore named after washing powder, Shakespeare characters or just 'Sodallagain'

The rock was also the name of a local bar with a reputation for attracting dark angels

I always assumed that Konrad’s name was a reference to Conrad Veidt, your explanation makes far more sense

As always your videos are not only entertaining but also rich with amazing information. Keep em coming Arbitor!

A lot of Old Norse names end in -gar, sort of a stand-in for "guy". So Lorgar is the Lore Guy.

Holy shit how did I not make the Curze connection myself?

Apparently Angron was named after a certain “Angry Ron”, a bouncer in a nightclub GW people used to visit back in the day…

absolutely loved this video, it'd be great to see another video like this looking at all of the historical references embedded in the 40k mythos. thanks again for a great video, keep up the good work!

Thank you! I didn't need another reason to love hobby fluff, but now it turns out there are layers on layers that only multiplied my appreciation for decades of lore. This is quickly becoming the premiere lore channel on KZfaq. Keep it up, and thank you as always!

This was really good, I knew some of the references and easter eggs for for the Primarchs, but you really fleshed them out, great vid!

neat that this also made me find out that Urizen, the villain in Devil May Cry 5, is named after a character William Blake created. William Blake, who is constantly quoted by V, who is essentially the alter ego of Urizen.

Always been intrigued by the miniatures and the game but never knew the lore. Your channel has been great fun and I now have a tremendous respect for the authors and game builders so much going. Thanks for taking the time to make these videos.

Absolutely fantastic, Ian. Extremely well done!

Fun fact about Fulgrim. Ful is Swedish for ugly. Grim is Danish for ugly. Fulgrim is Ugly Ugly