His name is an amalgam of the Greek words ἄρχων and μάγος.
Archon (, plural: ἄρχοντες,
árchontes) means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, meaning "to be first, to rule", derived from the same root as words such as
monarch and
hierarchy.
Magos (, plural: μάγοι,
magœ), also of Greek origin, means "wizard" or "conjurer"; it is frequently employed to describe a practitioner of
black magic. Ultimately the origin of the word can be traced to Old Iranian, where according to
Herodotus it is the title of Zoroastrian priests. The Greek word was transliterated into Latin as "magus", which is the origin of the English "
magician". The spelling
archimage appears occasionally throughout the poem's text, however as an alternate form of the character's name, rather than a title.
Percy Bysshe Shelley would later use archimage as a synonym for wizard in his poem "Letter to Maria Gisborne". This in turn led to
Ursula K. Le Guin using the variant "archmage" in her novel
A Wizard of Earthsea to describe the leader of a group of wizards. The term has since become common place in fantasy literature and media. ==Critical interpretation==