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I am a newbie to this sub so apologies if this has been asked and answered before.
I am now a past-70 old fart, but when I was young, I first read "Hamlet" before I began to be interested in Homer and in the Roman Empire, so I actually thought the use of the names "Claudius" and "Laertes" was original to Shakespeare, before, of course, discovering later that one was a Roman Emperor and the other the father of Odysseus.
So what has bugged me since then is: "Why did Shakespeare choose these names for the characters in Hamlet?
"Claudius" was at least the name of a ruler in Roman history, which perhaps explains the use of the name for a reigning monarch in "Hamlet", but the Hamlet "Claudius" is a usurper, a murderer, a practitioner of incest and generally speaking a villain. Was the Emperor Claudius seen that way in Elizabethan times? Perhaps I am too influenced by the "good guy" picture made of him by Robert Graves in "I, Claudius", but in any event if anything, it was his successor, Nero, who is suspected of poisoning Claudius and usurping his throne.
As for "Laertes", I don't see any connection : the Laertes of the "Odyssey" is the father of Odysseus and is painted as a virtuous person but is really a minor character in the Homerian epic, appearing in a single "book" (chapter). What relation would that be to the character in "Hamlet"?
Any explanation much appreciated!
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