Greek name meaning 'avenger' or 'one who does not forget,' associated with avenging spirits in mythology.
Alastor is ancient, severe, and magnificent in equal measure. It derives from the Greek Alástōr, a compound of the negative prefix a- and the verb lanthanein, meaning 'to be forgotten' — making Alastor 'the one who does not forget,' or more pointedly, the avenger who never lets a wrong pass unpunished. In Greek religious thought, the Alastor was both a spirit of vengeance and an epithet of Zeus when invoked as the ultimate dispenser of justice across generations.
The name carried genuine dread: to be haunted by an alastor was to have your family's crimes catch up with you. The name appears in Homer and the Greek tragedians, but it found its most romantic expression in Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1816 poem Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude. In Shelley's hands the name shed its vengeful connotation and became a symbol of the idealist poet-spirit — doomed, restless, searching the world for an ideal beauty he can never find.
This Romantic reframing transformed Alastor from terror to tragedy. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, a brilliantly apt choice for a battle-scarred auror obsessed with constant vigilance.
The name also belongs to the charismatic Radio Demon in the animated series Hazbin Hotel. It remains rare enough to feel distinctive, old enough to carry genuine weight, and literary enough to reward those who know its history.