So I like etymology and I while looking stuff up today I decided to look at Strelitzias name.

I knew it was the nane for the bird of paradise but I never expected what else I found out!

Firstly, the Strelitzia gets it name from a the duchy Queen Charlotte was born in called Mecklenburg-Strelitz. 

So of course I wondered where 'Strelitz' comes from. It was borrowed from a Russian word стреле́ц -streléc- which means 'shooter, or archer'. 

And while i was looking into it further I found that word was also a title. It referred to russian soldiers in the Moscovite Guard who were once a very elite force before a lot of stuff happened and the group was disbanded. (Summarizing)

And I thought, 'Huh, interesting. A name that refers to flowers but is also a title for a soldier.'

 And when I went back to look at the original flower page i noticed, the strelitzia genus has only 5 species of flowers in it! 

The one people keep associating Strelitzia with (the bird of paradise being) being only one of them!

And it all came together...Strelitzia: one of 5 ancient soldiers. 

That interpretation just blew my mind because

 

she was supposed to be one of the 5 but got killed off!! 

She was supposed to be one of 5 ancient soldiers!

What do you think though? I dont know if this has been stated before, maybe this is old news but it was still cool to figure it out.

Edited February 4, 20196 yr by Fates Chance XIII

now that is a very interesting interpretation, it's always nice to see there's sometimes more being some things, and the digging is pretty neat.

I only knew the flower etimology, that always fitted to me since her brother would later use the flowers as element. That's interesting as well.

Yo, that's actually pretty badass, when you think about it! One of the five soldiers, aka, the Five Union Leaders! Very nice analysis! It's always fun to find out about name origins!