20 Things You Didn't Know About Inception
2. Some Names Have Hidden Meanings
From history to Greek mythology to the Bible to...words from foreign languages? One of these isn't like the others.
Anyway, Dom and Mal have hidden meanings in their names derived from the likes of Slavic languages and French.
While Dom Cobb got his last name from an American architect, his first name is the word for "home" in most Slavic languages, including Russian, Polish, and Croatian. This is a clever nod to Dom's ultimate goal in the film: to get home. "Dom" is also the root for terms like "domesticated" and "domicile", which both refer to home in some way.
Mal is short for Malorie, which is derived from the French word "malheur." This means misfortune or unhappiness. This makes sense given that she brings misfortune to Cobb throughout the movie. "Mal" also means "wrong", "bad", or "evil" in French when used as a noun.