In the novel "Moby Dick" what was Captain Ahab's full name?

JReid

Captain Ahab Ceely. May 14 01, 3:03 PM

tjoebigham

If you'll look in Melville's book, Ahab is the only name he has! Ahab was just Ahab - no 'first' or 'last' name, just like Ishmael, Queequeg, Starbuck, et al May 14 01, 9:07 PM

McGruff

The only instance I can find of a last name for Captain Ahab in Moby Dick is from the 1930 movie starring John Barrymore as Captain Ahab Ceely. www.IMDb.com also lists Barrymore playing Captain Ahab Ceeley (note the different spelling) in a 1926 movie called The Sea Beast. There is no indication that Melville's character in the novel had any name other than 'Ahab.' Apr 11 03, 8:59 PM

sissoed

In the book, before the ship sets sail, one of the owners, Capt. Peleg, says the name Ahab "'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother," which would make Ahab a first name. But all of the characters of authority in the novel -- Capt. Peleg, Capt. Bildad, Capt. Gardiner, Capt. Boomer, Father Mapple, Starbuck -- are addressed by their last name. Indeed, there is today a family of Starbuck, father and son both whaling captains, buried in the Nantucket graveyard, as you can discover on-line. I think just about everyone who reads the novel takes these names as last names. And even if those names generally were not last names, when it comes to such a forbidding and domineering character as Ahab, who is the very opposite of intimacy and comraderie, I think everyone in Nantucket and on ship would name him by his last name. I suspect almost all readers take the name Ahab as a last name. Thus in my opinion Melville erred in the content of this little speech to Capt. Peleg, and ought to have given Peleg a speech whose content dealt in some way with the fact that Ahab was the family name of Capt. Ahab's father. Nov 18 08, 12:44 PM

Tismay

As most of the main characters were based of biblical and pagan figures I'd go with the fact that these are family names - and also that in nautical situations of this nature during the time period of the book that crew members and officers often called their peers by their family name as to avoid having 4-5 people named Crewman John mistake the same order when it was only intended for Crewman John Elijah. Hope this helps. Apr 03 13, 7:54 PM