Rocinante a standalone word as well as a suffix. One meaning is "before" or "previously". Another is "in front of". As a suffix, "-ante" in Spanish is adverbial; "rocinante" refers to functioning as, or being, a "rocín". "Rocinante", then, follows Cervantes' pattern using ambiguous, multivalent words, which is common throughout the novel. Rocinante's name, then, signifies his change in status from the "old nag" of before to the "foremost" steed. As Cervantes describes Don Quixote's choice of name: "nombre a su parecer alto, sonoro y significativo de lo que había sido cuando fue rocín, antes de lo que ahora era, que
The Name of the Rose The name of the central character, William of Baskerville, alludes both to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes (compare "The Hound of the Baskervilles" – also, Adso's description of William in the beginning of the book resembles, almost word for word, Dr. Watson's description of Sherlock Holmes when he first makes his acquaintance in "A Study in Scarlet") and to William of Ockham (see the next section). The name of the narrator, his apprentice Adso of Melk is among other things a pun on Simplicio from Galileo Galilei's "Dialogue"; Adso deriving from "ad Simplicio" ("to Simplicio"). Adso's putative place of origin,