The Name Game
By Sophie Masson | January 14, 2009 |
For me, the first time a vague plot idea begins to quicken into the real possibility of a story is when I start getting the names of my principal characters. Occasionally, names are the first things that spring to mind, rather than plot, and so things feel a little different. But more usually, it’s the basic plot that bursts on me first, and the names come after. Before them, things seem abstract, even when the plot is beginning to take some sort of shape. It’s as if the story could happen to anyone, like an urban myth or a fairytale where no-one is named, but exists as a function, a common noun: ‘the king’; ‘the hitchhiker’; ‘the witch’ and so forth. Afterwards, though, everything becomes more personal, more real; you might have had a vague idea of your characters, of their basic personality, even of their appearance: but naming them makes them spring fully into life. Also, the plot comes sharply into focus, because at its heart what plot really is of course is the interaction between characters, good and bad.
So it’s an important thing, this name game. It’s really worthwhile spending a bit of time and thought on it (as well as being fun!) There are times when the names just jump into my mind—other times when I labour over them, consulting books of baby names, looking up relevant lists of names on the Internet, thinking about all the various people I know, scanning newspapers and magazines.
I think carefully about appropriate names for my characters, partly because names conjure up an impression of a person in a book, just as they do in real life; we tend to have an idea about what people might be like, based on their names, before we even meet them in person. This is based on our associating the name with people we know, even with ourselves; there’s a childishly instinctive part of us that automatically thinks, ‘Oh, a Sophie or a David or a Maria or a Jose or take-your-pick is like this or that’, and it can be disconcerting to meet someone who doesn’t at all conform to your idea of those names.
And of course these ideas about a name’s presence vary from country to country, and time to time: for instance, a romantic hero called, say, Cyril or Albert or a romantic heroine called Mildred or Prudence would not have much traction in an English-language romance novel, set in the modern age. But set them back in Victorian times and you might be able to get away with it. I say might because some names sound irredeemably uncool or silly to our modern ears and thus distract the reader from the character’s intended presence. Best then to pick other Victorian names that are less loaded with silly freight. Similarly, to call, say, a French character Cindy Lou is hardly a very appropriate thing to do, unless you’re writing a deliberately off-the-wall story, or there’s some intriguing backstory associated with the character’s name—which you’d do best to introduce pretty fast into the story, or readers will be jolted out of the suspension of disbelief.
Surnames are similar—best to pick something appropriate for time and place and presence, and also, if you are using names from outside English-language culture, best also to pick ones that aren’t too difficult to pronounce, in a monolingual reader’s mind (you can’t assume your reader will know more than the language they’re reading in). Stumbling over difficult names can be a real roadblock on the suspension-of-disbelief highway. Though of course that doesn’t necessarily apply to fantasy.
Fantasy’s different, in the name game. While with thrillers, family sagas, and ”realistic” novels of various sorts, I tend to stick to time-place-association-appropriate names, names for the characters in my fantasy novels can be a little more, er, imaginative. You can really let it rip (whilst being careful not to make things sound silly or be so much of a gobbledygook mouthful no-one can hope to pronounce it). For the origins of fantasy names, I’ve used all kinds of other sources: not only from traditional stories, folk belief, myth and so on, but also from all kinds of outlandish inspirations. For instance, in my Thomas Trew and the Hidden World fantasy series for younger readers, I dipped into such things as Katherine Briggs’ fantastic A Dictionary of Fairies, Greek and Norse and Celtic myth—and also road signs (Adverse Camber), the names of herbs (Angelica Eyebright), of cloud formations (Cumulus Zephyrus), of printing styles (Monotype Eberhardt).
Names for places are also important. In the Thomas Trew series, the names for the two principal villages in ‘Middler’ country (the Hidden World is made up of many different regions, which Thomas visits in the course of the six books), Owlchurch and Aspire, came about because of my observation that British villages often had one of two styles of church—the square Norman tower style with pointy bits at each corner which make them look from a distance like a big, square owl’s head; and the tall pointy Gothic spire type. An owlchurch; a spire. It also went well because Owlchurch, like its name, is rather homely, quaint and old-fashioned; while Aspire is gleaming and modern and refined. Straight away, starting from the names themselves, a situation was set up, a rivalry central to the developing plot, and I was well away.
Image by ssilence.
Born in Indonesia of French parents, and brought up in France and Australia, Sophie Masson is the award-winning author of over 70 books for children, young adults and adults. Her latest books include Sydney under Attack (children’s historical novel, Scholastic Australia, 2022) A Hundred Words for Butterfly (adult novella, ES-Press, 2022) and Cock-a-doodle-doo (children’s picture book, (illustrated by Kathy Creamer, little Pink Dog Books, 2022). In 2019, Sophie received an AM (Member, General Division) award in the Order of Australia honours list.
Names are a close second to titles in degree of difficulty for me.
For me, it’s all about the name. Having a character named Joe or Bud suggests something totally different than naming him Winthrop or Chase.
I dig the name Owlchurch, Sophie. I like the way it looks on the page, and the connotations of ‘owl’ and ‘church’ together.
What I don’t like in fantasy novels are absurdly made-up names like Kaa’tgn’. Too many of those and I have a hard time remembering who is who.
Great post, as usual!
I have to admit, I tend to judge fantasy books on their names. Really bad, hard to say/comprehend names will totally and immediately turn me off.
For other books, there are impressions and associations certainly, but actually I often like when a reader gives me a character with a name I certainly think about in a certain way and then totally changes it.
naming them makes them spring fully into life
This is true for me, too.
I’ve had a lot of fun naming characters and looking for meaning in those names. One secondary character, for example, is named Ermanno. He’s an Italian, and the meaning of his name is “combative.” His role as a brother to another character is key, so his name is also an auditory cheap trick, sounding like the Spanish “hermano,” which means brother. Since several languages are used in the novel, I thought this worked.
I also love the sound of Owlchurch and the reason you’ve given for the name.
Thanks for a great post, Sophie!
Yes, the wrong name can totally throw the author as well as a reader, and it’s certainly worth spending time on getting it right. As a reader, I must admit I tend to pass over fantasy novels with names that sound really ‘made up’ and pretentious. But names that are based in reality or on an image (I LOVE Owlchurch!) really add a depth and extra dimension to a story.
Occasionally a name will come as a gift – my Shel in Close Ups, for instance, where the concision and suggestion of hard exterior, intriguing interior, suited my interest in this brave, complex girl.
Sometimes I have over-deliberated the problem. My doomed apprentice, Jack Bell, in The Man Who Stayed Below, was so surnamed because he is the Baldur figure in that novel’s working out of the Norse Baldur/Loki/Hodur myth and bell is an Irish equivalent god to Baldur. But such niceties lose the essential immediacy that attaches to naming, a sound-byte that gives a figure a particularity in their presence.
I am happier with the naming of my ‘lakewoman’ in my imminent novel, ‘The Lakewoman’ because it combines a plausible nickname given to her by the german troops billetted in her Normandy farmhouse while also alluding to the Viviane of Arthurian story who was the Lady Of The Lake.
But like many of the entries above, I find both names, and titles difficult because so much hangs on them, and knowing this makes one self-conscious and too fastidious in choosing them. One looks for immediacy and rightness, the two qualities that establish presence. For that reason I envy the sheer brilliance of the great namers – Dickens, Shakespeare in his minor characters, Waugh, Kipling,
This is such a fascinating subject…thank you, Sophie. I go through agonies till I find the right name for a character and when I do hit on it eventually it’s always immensely satisfying. One of the things that sometimes puts me off fantasy (not yours, needless to say!) is the peculiar names, esp. when they have a Stoneagey sound to them. Titles are fun too. I like long poetic ones or one word ones but apparently enigmatic ones don’t go down well on bestseller lists. People like books whose titles make it clear what the book’s about. Allegedly!
My Facing the Light was a good title but you only got to understand that when you’d read the whole book! DOH! I should have called it something like ‘The party at Willow Court’ which is less interesting and poetic but possibly would have led to more SALES!
Sometimes I think that no one should be allowed to write Fantasy until they’ve passed Linguistics 101 – basic phonology and morphology and history of language. It astonishes me that editors ever read past the first page of a ms whose characters have names full of exes, kays, zeds and apostrophes, let alone see such a work though to publication without insisting on appropriate changes!
After I plot out my character and their design, I like to look up names with meanings that connect to them.
Only problem I run across is keeping the origin steady.