To indulge my ADD, "What's in a name: part 2"

Jayne. I could be more complex, but in terms of name analysis, one could argue that his entire personality is based on one thing: compensating. He is incredibly tough, not so trustworthy, macho dude who by no stretch of the imagination goes with a name that usually belongs to a female. It's like when you go to name your son something weird and your friends say to you "If you're going to name him_____( Milo, Taran, Ashley, Ezra, Cameron) he better be good looking and big, because if he's not other kids will tease him." I feel that accurately sums up Jayne.

Inara. Not going to lie, I had to look this one up. In Hittite Mythology Inara was a goddess of wild animals, similar to Artemis in Greek Mythology (wiki.) In her story she is the daughter of a god, she seduces a mortal man in order to get him to help her battle a demon. This one was not easy, and I am sure a deliberate choice by Joss. Check the wiki link if you want see more, I'm not going to paraphrase it all, but her stories are very interesting.

River. I honestly see this as more of a River Phoenix reference than a hippy/earthy/natural kind of river thing. She seems tragic and young, like he was, she is being used for her powers, probably in order to feed someone's addiction to power/skills or whatever it is that they are taking from her. This one is a little bit of a stretch, but I'm just going to go with it.

P.s I already offered Hannah, my thoughts on Patience and her name as a comment of her blog about strong females. Kudos!