A/N: This is meant to be Ash's POV, so, sorry to any Irish people that get offended by the Sean thing. And, um, sorry to the residents of the small Welsh border town of Howell.
...
When you look in a book of names, and you look up 'Sean', it says 'see John'. As if circumstances aren't enough: as if John Rider hasn't gotten enough spotlight, even a naming dictionary can point out the heart of the problem.
Anthony Sean Howell.
Anthony Ignore him Howell.
Sean comes from Irish. Ireland: a half UK country, not included in Great Britain and patriotic only to itself. John, coincidentally, is English. Sean is just a less popular, foreign variation.
.
"Oh!" they say. "But 'Anthony' is popular! Anthony means 'priceless one'." Of course it does.
"We like you. We all do, Anthony."
He has three names, and each one of them he hates.
"We like you, Anthony..." But you like John better. The lie of the Anthony comes first. Then comes the Sean.
Butter him up, Ignore him, Howell.
.
Agent Howell. Howell: a small, Welsh border town. Insignificant. Nobody cares.
Agent We don't need you.
Agent You don't matter.
Butter him up, Ignore him, He doesn't matter.
(Look at John.)
So he changes it.
.
'Ash' is simpler. It gets the point across. Ash is what you get when you burn bridges. Ash is when the fire dies. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
The beginning.
"Of course we need you, Anthony."
The middle.
"But maybe John should do this one."
The end.
"After all, we can't risk it going wrong. We need our best agent."
Priceless, surpassed, insignificant.
.
When John is told to join Scorpia instead of him, he isn't surprised.
(He does it anyway, later, for real; at his best friend's expense.)
When John meets Yassen Gregorovich, he isn't surprised they get on well. After all, 'Yassen' means 'Ash Tree'. A growing thing. A sapling. A new life. Not Ash: a destroyer. A burnt thing. A shell.
A planted agent. A seed of friendship. The start of something.
(He doesn't know 'Yassen' was once 'Yasha'. He doesn't know 'Yasha' is Russian for 'James'. If he had, it would have been so much simpler. 'James' means 'the supplanter', after all, and Yassen has taken his place.)
So Ash he is, and Ash he stays.
And John Rider ('God's gracious knight') is blown up alongside Helen ('Light; wise and understanding') and what was Ash's become ashes, up in the air, where everyone can see, and Ash has become his own end. Ash has ended his friends and the light of his life, and he's ended himself. When he meets Jack Starbright, later on, she is pretty, but she isn't his type.
Jack, but not John.
Hair an explosion.
Starbright, but not the light of his life. Bright, but not Helen. Pretty, but not Helen.
.
Ian, his brother, is too much like John. Ian is just another John. Ian is not John. (Ian. The name 'Ian' is 'John' in Scottish. Not quite as patriotic a name as his brother's; but more so than 'Sean'.)
.
And, finally, Alex. Alex, he meets before everything, and Alex he meets after.
The child spy.
Alex: a helper and defender.
Rider: a knight.
And Anthony Sean Howell doesn't tell Alex his name, because Alex means all he ever stood for, and all he ever stood against.
(And, when he dies, it's a bullet, not a bomb, and he is glad life is not that ironically cruel.)
...
A/N: All these definitions are true, by the way, according to a 'Name your Baby' book I have (which is surprisingly useful for origins and so forth), and the 'Oxford Dictionary of Surnames'.
A supplanter is a person who 'wrongfully seizes or takes the place of another, usually on purpose'.
And, in case you were wondering (I couldn't fit these in),
Gregorovich means 'son of Gregory', and Gregory means 'to be watchful'.
And, also, Beckett is a little mouth or a beak
Alibi
.
PS. For a horoscope of Yassen's name, type in 'Yassen - Kabalarian Philosophy': it's not exactly God's gift to horoscopes, but I'm sure, if Yassen saw it, he would laugh himself sick.