#L space is an old work of love for PTerry's writing

[greenycrimson]

Details about Aziraphale's name are in the second note if you go to the L-space annotations for the book. - [p. vii] "[...] the angel, whose name was Aziraphale."

On the subject of the correct pronunciation of the name, Terry says:

"It should be Azz-ear-raf-AE-el, but we got into the habit of pronouncing it Azz-ear-raf-ail, so I guess that's the right way now."

And about the name's origin:

"It was made up but... er... from real ingredients. [The name] Aziraphale could be shoved in a list of 'real' angels and would fit right in..."

For instance, Islam recognizes the Archangels Jibril, Mikhail, Azrael (see also the annotation for p. 9 of Reaper Man ), and Israfel (the subject of Edgar Allan Poe's well-known poem of the same name), whereas from Christianity we get such names as Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel.

neil, is there any particular reason why most angels' names end with -ael or -iel? with the exceptions of metatron, sandalphon, and aziraphale of course.

Angelic names tend to discuss the relationship of the angel to god, or be a description of an aspect of god. The "El" at the end of angelic names means "God" (or more precisely "god" because it can refer to lots of different gods).

Iirc Michael means "who is like God?", Gabriel means "my strength comes from God", Uriel means "light of God", Saraqael means "beloved by God" and Muriel means "smells like God".