Literature professor Shoshana Milgram traces the origins of the character to adventure stories that Rand read as a child, including the French novels "La Vallée Mystérieuse" and "Le Petit Roi d'Ys". Rand also owned a copy of a 1940 novel with characters named Jed and John Peter Galt. There was a 19th-century Scottish novelist of the same name, but Milgram says that any connection to the character is "highly unlikely". Milgram also notes that the name Rand originally picked for her character was "Iles" Galt.