Naming Our Dwarfs

images.jpgWe can name the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Cardinal Virtues. But how did Walt Disney come to name the Seven Dwarfs?

In dreams and literature, dwarfs may represent personifications of hidden or unconscious forces in the natural world. In the Bible, the word for “dwarf”, which disqualified the descendents of Aaron from offering sacrifices (Lev. 21:20), suggests “withered.”

So the Seven Dwarfs may present humans withered by the play of forces, the existence of which, they may be  unaware. Walt Disney’s final seven names were culled from this list, according to Neal Gabler in Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination:

Scrappy
Sleepy
Cranky
Dirty
Awful
Happy
Blabby
Silly
Daffy
Dopey
Flabby
Jaunty
Biggo Ego
Bashful
Chesty
Jumpy
Baldy
Hickey (“always hiccoughing at wrong moment”)
Gabby
Shorty
Nifty
Sneezy
Wheezy
Doc
Sniffy
Burpy
Lazy
Puffy
Dizzy
Stuffy
Tubby
Grumpy

Can you identify the seven winning names? Which of these forces have been withering your soul lately?

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