What's in a (sister's) name?
Working on a fairy tale retelling and found myself chasing down the closest I could get to the definitive names for Cinderella's wicked/ugly (depending on who you ask) stepsisters. Of course there is no 'definitive' since this myth stretches back (again depending on who you ask) quite to antiquity, and has cousins all over the world, so you have a bunch of ethnic variation as well. But these are modern examples of the wicked stepsisters' names, according to:
Disney: Drusilla & Anastasia
Ever After: Marguerite & Jacqueline
Ella Enchanted: Hattie & Olive
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister: Iris & Ruth
Ella Cinders (1926): Lotta & Prissy
Faerie Tale Theatre (1982): Arlene & Bertha
Rodgers & Hammerstein of '97: Calliope & Minerva
Rodgers & Hammerstein of '64: Prunella & Esmerelda
And as close to the original as I could find: in Charles Perrault's Cinderella -- Perrault was the single father behind what we'd call the modern Cinderella (1697), adding things like the glass slippers and such -- one sister is named "Javotte". The other is never named. Which is actually quite useful, if it's true. The one version of Perrault's story that I could find, like most of the myths before it (and all non-moderns after, including the Grimm's version), did not name the stepsisters or the stepmother; they were "the oldest one" and "the youngest one" and "the mother". So the application of names seems to be an entirely modern thing, and it's interesting what's been invented for them; what names, according to the rough sample, a variety of writers have deemed appropriate for "evil stepsisters".
Disney: Drusilla & Anastasia
Ever After: Marguerite & Jacqueline
Ella Enchanted: Hattie & Olive
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister: Iris & Ruth
Ella Cinders (1926): Lotta & Prissy
Faerie Tale Theatre (1982): Arlene & Bertha
Rodgers & Hammerstein of '97: Calliope & Minerva
Rodgers & Hammerstein of '64: Prunella & Esmerelda
And as close to the original as I could find: in Charles Perrault's Cinderella -- Perrault was the single father behind what we'd call the modern Cinderella (1697), adding things like the glass slippers and such -- one sister is named "Javotte". The other is never named. Which is actually quite useful, if it's true. The one version of Perrault's story that I could find, like most of the myths before it (and all non-moderns after, including the Grimm's version), did not name the stepsisters or the stepmother; they were "the oldest one" and "the youngest one" and "the mother". So the application of names seems to be an entirely modern thing, and it's interesting what's been invented for them; what names, according to the rough sample, a variety of writers have deemed appropriate for "evil stepsisters".