Of all the things I do as a writer, I find creating character names difficult and baffling. Except when it’s not. Some characters have arrived in my life with names affixed. Tess Monaghan, the Bethany girls. Others, as explained yesterday in the comments section, were drawn from newspaper bylines. If I were a historical novelist, I might use cemeteries for names. I have consulted phone books to find surnames and Googled the popular names lists of particular years.
Whenever I fantasize about hiring an assistant — a fantasy that quickly dies when I realize I then would have to train an assistant — the first task I think I would assign would be a dictionary of my character names. I have a hunch that I have repeated myself here and there and that I am disproportionately drawn to certain letters of the alphabet. (P and W, for example.)
I also have to be conscious about using certain family names, especially as my parents’ names are unusual, or used to be. (My mother’s name, which is my middle name, has come roaring back into fashion.) I don’t believe I have ever used my sister’s name in a novel, although I think I have used a variant. While I take a dim view of those who think they can see themselves in my work, I think my family has the right to be a little more sensitive to such issues.
The one name I feel I can never use is . . . my own. In fact, I won’t even reference the neighborhood known as Lauraville, fearful that readers would think it was a self-referential joke. (There really is a Lauraville in Baltimore, and it’s a lovely, idiosyncratic place.)
The names in LIFE SENTENCES came easily, in my memory, but all novels seem charmed in hindsight. I also feel the same way about I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE, in which names are extremely important. But then — names are always important, it’s a theme to which I’ve returned again and again in my work. Our names shape us to some extent. Shortening one’s name or deciding on a nickname are often the first ways in which we struggle to define ourselves. My mother made it clear that she did not want me to be “Laurie” and I was rigid about this. (Although, come to think of it, no one really tried to foist that nickname on me.)
I’m at the beginning of a new work and many of the characters’ names are tentative at this point. But two are not. Two characters arrived with their names intact, which means their characters are intact.
Oh, and this is a reason I very, very, very, very, very seldom auction off naming rights (or Tuckerization) for one of my novels. I have found it exceedingly difficult to start with names and then create characters.
As previously noted, a woman named Whitney just makes me envision a well put-together person. It was only last month (while reading Charm City) that I realized Whitney Talbot was white(!) – I think her name evoked images of Whitney Houston (circa 1985) and Cassandra’s friend in Life Sentences.
Leaving that aside, names can communicate a certain pretension or social assertion (or the opposite); the kiddo in the comedy movie about the nannie (named Grayer, I believe) did that, as does LL’s marvelous and intriguing heroine Heloise – for reasons I cannot specifically ennunciate. (something about living, or even thriving, wearing such a het-up name). Judith is a classic mom’s name, and I cannot remember the detective’s names, but I liked them, too. (I remember Tyner Gray’s name. I suppose I wouldn’t like him if I knew him; too athletic and driven) Maybe that’s the thing about names – you want to avoid loading them – making the name do the work that the narrative should do. They just fit.
Laura,
It’s a shame you can’t refer to Lauraville in your books–I live near (alas, not in) Lauraville and the Enoch Pratt Library branch where I work is also close. Former in-laws still live there. I can see Tess at the Red Canoe (bookstore/eatery–wonderful sandwiches, soups and pastries). But I see your point.
A friend who’s in the process of selling rights to a movie he made says he has to clear all the names of the characters in his films, i.e. make sure no actual persons exist with those names. Isn’t the disclaimer “no resemblance to persons living or dead,” etc., sufficient to avoid lawsuits from someone who has the same name as a character in a film or novel?
Film and television play by different rules, indeed, but I’m not sure if it’s based in actual law, or a desire to avoid even frivolous lawsuits. (Groucho Marx’s character in A DAY AT THE RACES was supposed to be called Quackenbush, but there were Dr. Quackenbushes inclined to sue, according to one piece I’ve read.)
Jimmy McNulty in The Wire started with a different name, but it didn’t clear.
I’m thinking that if you really want a dictionary of character names, a wiki could be set up and some volunteers could divide up the books and get this done. Our book group read Skinwalkers for last Saturday’s meeting, and I brought The Tony Hillerman Companion from the library. One of the chapters was a character name dictionary, so I have a format in my head. They used a 2-letter code to indicate the books for recurring characters, and a quick look at your titles shows you like them to start with a B
Less than 8 years later, though, Lou Costello was Oliver Quackenbush in “Here Come the Co-Eds”! And were there no Hackenbushes to object to Groucho’s amended character name? Which is neither here nor there, i guess.
Lois, there’s a part of me who really doesn’t want to know and I’m not sure what that’s about.
Whitney Talbot is a great name. Isn’t Talbot County still the wealthiest county in Maryland?
I have always assumed that wealthy Whitney’s last name came from the county.
Kevin,
That’s one case where I simply don’t recall how the character got her name. But, yes, I think the county, along with the clothing store, were subliminal influences. I also think I once wrote that it’s pronounced the way that Eastern Shore types pronounce the county’s name: “Tall, but.”
Yes, you did say Whitney’s name was pronounced like the county. It stayed with me because I live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland (Wicomico County), but when I moved here I had to learn to call the county in which Easton is located “Tall-but.” Now I can’t pronounce the name of the women’s clothing store chain properly!
Speaking of the Delmarva, or I guess only the mar part, Christopher White’s SKIPJACK has some wonderful real Tilghman Island names.
Kevin,
Oh, that’s a fascinating topic. When I created my own fictional island in the bay — which took its name from my beloved webmistress, although with a slightly different spelling — I was terrified that I would use a real Smith Island name for one of the characters by accident, or create a character who resembled someone there.
I love this topic. Cassandra’s name in LIFE SENTENCES tells us so much about her, before the story even begins; one way or another, we know she is not someone who will bring happiness to others, or even to herself.
As a reader, I find that character names tell me a lot about the author’s intent � or at least, I expect them to. The presence of Major Major (or Major Major M. Major) in CATCH-22 tells us that we’re in a world that’s a little warped, not quite as real as the world most of us inhabit. Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Victor Gischler, and dozens of others announce their intentions with their characters’ names.
So it distracts me and annoys me when authors working in a realistic mode give characters names that are 1) self-conscious, winking tributes to well-known literary names or 2) names of people I might actually know. Recognizing a character’s name rips me out of the story and makes me think the author’s writing some kind of postmodern satire instead of the more conventional novel I was expecting. Some readers like these inside jokes, I know, but they almost offend me, for reasons I’d probably need more therapy to identify.
Clair,
Me, too, on the real people names, which is another reason I don’t Tucker-ize. (Although, full disclosure: I did name a character after Ted Hertel, but because it was state Senator Hertel, I thought it might zip by without notice.) I know it won’t affect most readers, but it affects me. I love losing myself in a book and inside jokes are distracting.
It’s one reason I almost never reference The Wire or Homicide in my own work, although it would sometimes make sense. It feels too jokey, too insider-ish. I admit, I almost felt a stab of envy when Sophie Hannah tossed off a reference to a “Wire” DVD in one of her books because it is a very telling character detail. (I was, however, downright perturbed when a character in Nick Hornby’s JULIET, NAKED used Wire DVDs to launch an affair.)
Regarding character naming right, I’ve won bids and each time gave the author a choice of variations of my names. I didn’t particularly want ‘me’ to pop up because I’ve read books where people I know have been Tuckerized and it mars my immersion in the story for a while. It’s occurred to me that my name may not fit a story’s character – a variation of Feinson’s theory that the sound of a name evokes a particular emotional response, I guess.
More on Feinson’s theory, please! I don’t know anything about it. (I know, I know, I could Google, but discussion is so much more fun.)
My grandmother had similar thoughts to your mother on nicknames. Which meant that my mother was always Genevieve as a child, never Gen. It’s a lovely name, but having to spell that out as a kid must have been a pain.
I haven’t read the book, <em>Secret Universe of Names</em>, but Roy Feinson thinks that all letters of the alphabet hold an emotional factor and their sounds and the facial configurations required to enunciate them affect our emotions. The man is also involved with mosaic photographic art and graphic software. Very fascinating.
<a href=”http://www.royfeinson.com/” target=”_blank”>www.royfeinson.com</a>
I had a film writing teacher who had a theory that names could be chosen by thinking about the effects particular words might have on people. His example was that if you were naming a sporting good store, for example, you’d think about words with positive sports associations. He picked “win” and “field” to come up with Winfield’s Sporting Goods. I haven’t always used that technique, or been able to when I’ve tried, but I have never forgotten good ol’ Winfield’s.
The personal history of our relationship with some names is hard to avoid when we read. Teachers who were less than tolerant of coloring outside the lines, bullies, cheerleaders, toxic bosses, etc. all left their mark on some perfectly good names. And the opposite as well of course. I have never known a Clair that wasn’t gentle, a good listener and a safe harbor when the seas were heavy.
In the first season of the show Criminal Minds, Agent Hotchner and his wife are pregnant and can’t come up with a name for a boy because everyone they like has some association with serial killer.
One of my favorite authors of historical fiction used beautiful names for all of her characters, but most of them I could never see working in real life.
Try plugging your name (or people you know) into a numerology chart. It’s surprisingly accurate.
I like the names you use. They’re pretty but normal and totally convincing. I hate it when the names distract from the story (“Leigh Teabing”? Oh, come on).
Unless, of course, you’re Thomas Pynchon and you give your characters names like Mike Fallopian, Bigfoot Bjornsen or Roberta Chirpingdon-Groin. Then it’s just hilarious.
Ruth Rendell uses some really bizarre names in her books, to the point where sometimes I find it distracting. At Bourchercon in las Vegas, she said she really goes out of her way to avoid using what might be someone’s real name for fear of upsetting them or even a lawsuit. (Approximate recollection; long time ago.) With lesser writers than RR, when I see a really striking name I tend to suspect it’s a cheap way of making the character seem more interesting. Or a joke, of course, although for me something like Martin Amis’s Caduta Massi gets old very fast.
Laura,
Did you, by any chance, collect baseball cards as a kid? Old baseball cards sure come in handy for this purpose. (Simon has used this trick as well.)
As for having to clear TV names… that can sometimes stomp on the poetics. So “Harley Watts” becomes “Harley Watt”… and loses a little something in the process.
Hey, UBM — can you shed more light on why film/television shows feel they have to clear names? Is it because of nuisance suits? Has anyone every successfully sued over the use of a name? The use of a name (in a different context) seems a lesser offense to me than the recognizable stories used in so many of the L&O franchises. NOT that I want people to be able to sue over recognizable situations!
I finally saw Avatar over the weekend, and thought to myself at the end, “Man, those credits are an incredibly rich vein of potential character names to mine…”
I may have to start hitting IMDB just for surnames of best boys and key grips.
Hey Laura. I never got to the bottom of the algorithm employed to invalidate a name. I recall being told that if there is one real person in the city you’re writing about with that name, then you can’t use it.
If I remember right, if there are a bunch of real people in the city you’re writing about with the name, then you can use it. (Or, of course, if there are zero people.)
In the annals of show business, must be an example of someone raising a stink about… but I never heard.
By the way, did you know that Brad Pitt portrays “David Mills” in the movie “Seven”? I always wanted to ask the screenwriter how he landed on that name.
Whoa — I never put that together about SEVEN. Very creepy.
I realized today that I have a reference to a boy named Simon in my latest book. Thought about taking it out, but I don’t think most people will notice it. And the name is used only once, in passing.