Hmmm. Al-Zabin. As you said, nonstandard etymology can be fun--Malfoy being a fun challenge. But still, what one is doing there is taking an obviously Italian name and finding a long explanation to make it not say what it says. I'll have to read that essay to see why it would wind up as Zabini instead of Zabin. One might just as well say that it came from Zabiniski.
Where as it is very fun thinking up the background for a name that you get. Even if you have in your fic that Malfoy is bad faith (which is right up there with ickle Slytherin MALcolm BADdock) it would be fun to come up with a reason for that. I mean, I'm not an expert in where names come from but they might have gotten the name Bad Faith for a noble reason. To some fundamentalist Christians who hate the books the name might simply imply that they are witches. (But then, I often feel like a lot of the stuff with Slytherin and Purebloods could be read as the Old Religion vs. the New Religion represented by Gryffindor's crusaders.)
Re: For once, using my default icon on purpose.
Where as it is very fun thinking up the background for a name that you get. Even if you have in your fic that Malfoy is bad faith (which is right up there with ickle Slytherin MALcolm BADdock) it would be fun to come up with a reason for that. I mean, I'm not an expert in where names come from but they might have gotten the name Bad Faith for a noble reason. To some fundamentalist Christians who hate the books the name might simply imply that they are witches. (But then, I often feel like a lot of the stuff with Slytherin and Purebloods could be read as the Old Religion vs. the New Religion represented by Gryffindor's crusaders.)