Captain Haddock the time of their last completed and published adventure, "Tintin and the Picaros", Haddock had become such an important figure that he dominates much of the story. Captain (Archibald) Haddock's ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock, is hinted at being the illegitimate son of the French Sun King (Louis XIV), a possible reference to Hergé's own family history— Hergé liked to believe that his father was the illegitimate son of the Belgian king Leopold II. As Hergé was considering names for his new character, he asked his wife, Germaine, what she had cooked for dinner. She told him, “a sad English fish—haddock.”
Haddock recorded was in length and weighed , however, haddock are rarely over in length and the vast majority of haddocks caught in the United Kingdom measure between and . In eastern Canadian waters haddock range in size from to in length and and in weight. The haddock has populations on either side of the north Atlantic but it is more abundant in the eastern Atlantic than it is on the North American side. In the north-east Atlantic it occurs from the Bay of Biscay north to Spitzbergen, however, it is most abundant north of the English Channel. The largest stocks