The Mystery of Katniss' Name: Unraveling the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The Enigma of Lucy Gray and Katniss Everdeen

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes answers a few questions about Katniss' later story, but it also creates some intriguing mysteries. Though centered on a young President Coriolanus Snow, the Hunger Games prequel also introduces a District 12 girl who has quite a lot in common with Katniss Everdeen. Lucy Gray is different in personality and attitude from the girl who would become the Mockingjay, but they both share a deep knowledge of edible plants and music, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes suggests that this is because of a shared family connection.

Custom image of Katniss Everdeen looking forlorn and Lucy Gray Baird looking confident from The Hunger Games franchise

Throughout Snow's time in District 12 in Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, we see several familiar features of The Hunger Games. The Hob, which was a place that Katniss would trade in the original series, is where Lucy Gray Baird and the other Covey members would perform, and the lake in the woods where Katniss' father used to take her to swim as a child is revealed to have been a secret getaway for the musical Covey decades earlier. Even Katniss' name has a connection to Lucy Gray since she was seemingly the only one in District 12 who knew this was what the swamp potatoes surrounding the lake were called. However, the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie makes this detail confusing.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes; The Hunger Games

The Origin of Katniss' Name

The Hunger Games movies never mentioned where Katniss' name came from, so the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes film was the first that Katniss roots were mentioned on screen. Lucy Gray told Snow about the edible swamp potatoes and said she preferred to call them katniss. This would, of course, stand out to audiences since this was the name of the girl who would go on to be President Snow's downfall. However, since Lucy Gray implies that others rarely call these tubers katniss, it's surprising that Katniss Everdeen would receive her name nearly 50 years later.

Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird Turning While Playing the Guitar in The Hunger Games The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The lake near District 12 was far beyond where the citizens were permitted to go, so the Covey were the only ones during the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes who knew about its location. Additionally, foraging was illegal, and by Katniss' day, she and Gale were among the few in the District with enough knowledge to do it safely. Since Lucy Gray disappeared at the end of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, it seems that the information about katniss plants would have disappeared with her. However, Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games books, including Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes provided several more hints about how this obscure plant became Katniss' namesake.

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The Connection to Maude Ivory

In the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie, Lucy Gray told only Snow about the name she liked to call swamp potatoes, but that wasn't necessarily the case in the book, where Maude Ivory was a far more prevalent character. The little girl was to Lucy Gray what Prim was to Katniss—someone she felt responsible for keeping alive. Therefore, anything Lucy Gray knew about survival would have been passed on to her fellow Covey member. Though Snow's lover left District 12 and disappeared forever, Maude Ivory was still there, and it's heavily implied in the books that she had a connection to Katniss.

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Katniss' father was the only other Hunger Games character besides Katniss who knew about the lake near District 12. It was the only wetland in the region and, therefore, the only place the katniss plants could grow. Since he knew this particular name for the edible tubers, Katniss' father must have known Maude Ivory or was at least her desendent. This is never confirmed in either the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes or Hunger Games books, but given Lucy Gray's disappearance and possible death, it's the most viable answer for how Covey knowledge, such as the name of swamp potatoes, lasted through the years all the way to Katniss.

Katniss in the arena looking surprised in The Hunger Games