WHAT’S IN A NAME?: A guest post by Alexandra Y. Caluen
“The naming of cats is a difficult matter’ – T.S. Eliot
At what point do fictional characters get a name? Generally, it’s when they have to be identified in order to make it clear who another character is talking to, or who is speaking, or who is doing something.
How a name is assigned is a Process. Mine has evolved a little.
The first L.A. Story was Getting Off (2012). The names in this story don’t do much beyond signal family history. Vicky Russo = Italian-American. Sharon Weiss = Jewish. Vicky’s parents live in Brooklyn and have not come into the stories in ways that necessitate names. Sharon’s parents, on the other hand, live in L.A. Her mother is a part-time caregiver for Vicky and Sharon’s daughter; and her father is the employer of Grace Gutierrez in Today, Tomorrow and Forever. There’s also a trick name in that first novella: Vince Connor. We learn (eventually) that Vince is short for Vicente; his mother is Mexican. Her name is Esmeralda, which is a tribute to my late lamented cat Emerald.
I always say a name out loud to test it. ‘Sandesh Prasad,’ for example (A Few Kisses Ago): that name tells us the character is of South Asian heritage, but also has a nice DAH-da-da-DAH rhythm. The last name is borrowed from a friend. The first name is readily nicknamed as Sandy, which is how he’s known to his colleagues at the beginning. By the end of the book, he’s gone through some stuff and the diminutive doesn’t cut it.
Sometimes names are not simply names. Sometimes they are part of the fun of the book (e.g. Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material), and sometimes more than that.
I found a brief discussion on names in the Arden St. Ives trilogy at Mr. Hall’s blog (find this at https://quicunquevult.com/hot-giveaway-action/). It’s to do with what animals those characters would be, which is entertaining, and which helped me assemble this list of names which I, as a reader, thought were coded. (One confirmed as such, elsewhere on Mr. Hall’s blog.)
Arden: no explanation needed; Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden (occurring in As You Like It, which in a sense is what this trilogy is all about) is called out more than once. Add a ‘t’ and the name becomes ‘ardent;’ that describes this character perfectly. St. Ives: an old English riddle rhyme.
Caspian: possibly a geographic allusion; in literature, a prince – the first time I saw this name, it was in The Chronicles of Narnia. Hart: ‘stag,’ in other words, a prey animal found in forests (hmm). Also a term associated with beauty, glamour, and heroism.
Nathaniel: Gift of God. Priest: enough said. This guy has both a savior complex and a martyr complex. He and Niall (Glitterland) should get together.
George: a clever name for a trans character; there’s literary precedent for a woman using a man’s name, and here it’s a man who is a woman. Chase: what she does.
Lancaster: a historical name – see the Wars of the Roses; code for ‘thinks he is king,’ if you ask me. Steyne: in my head I pronounce this ‘stain,’ which is completely appropriate.
Justin: a name awarded by Steyne, the vile older man who starts all of Caspian’s troubles; this name has a lot of obvious coding from ‘justice’ to Justine (see the Marquis de Sade (or not, ugh)). Bellerose: in my opinion, this is the most overt reference in the trilogy to ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ Ilya (Justin’s real name) Bellerose is literally the rose whose petals are falling as Caspian draws closer to the brink of destruction through self-denial.
I haven’t done anything quite like that in The L.A. Stories. I do, however, use names to help ground my characters. Often it’s ethnicity (e.g. Luis Ramirez). Sometimes it’s a cultural nod (Janis Vaughn, who’s a musician). Sometimes both: Tony Benedetti (The Continental) is Italian. This name is also an homage to Tony Bennett, one of the great entertainers of the 20th century. Tanith Salazar, a theater professional, is a special case. The surname is from a friend’s ex-wife, but also Salazar Slytherin. Tanith isn’t a bad guy! I was only having fun with it. Tanith is a name she chose herself. It’s an ancient name associated (like Lilith) with transgressive female power. It’s also an easy way out of Tabitha, the name her mother gave her. As she puts it: “Did my mother have something to say about that? Yes, yes she did. But if you grew up being called Tabby you would have changed your name too.”
I don’t pay tons of attention to names in books, but if they feel ‘wrong’ they can jar you out of the story. Names of famous people, past or present, should be avoided. Names that sound exclusively modern should be avoided in historicals, like River or Sunshine. Names with pronunciations that are not intuitive, like Giellis (said as Gaylus with a hard ‘G’) or Laoghaire (said as Leery) which are both examples from Outlander, should be avoided. Those two poor characters have had their names butchered for 30 years! Any kind of a name that trips up the eye or the ear or the brain when reading/listening is normally not a good thing.
If the author intends special emphasis on a name as a clue to personality or plot, that’s different of course.
The worst thing about Laoghaire is it’s the name of a suburb of Dublin and if you ever go there it’s on every map around Dublin (Dun Laoghaire) so after that when you read Outlander afterwards it’s like having a female character’s name be Bronx or Staten Island or something. You can’t get past it.
Great post as usual, Alexandra. Great topic too! :)
I remember watching an Elmore Leonard interview where he said he couldn’t start a story until the character had a name. Because he firmly believed that names gave characters the ability to talk in the story. He added that, for whatever reason, he could never get a good guy named “Frank” to talk. Case in point: In his book Bandits (which is a lot of fun, BTW), he originally named the protagonist Frank Matusi. Alas, he couldn’t get him to talk. But once he renamed him Jack Delaney, suddenly, he couldn’t shut him up. Plus, he found the name Rayland when he met a man named Rayland Davis and asked if he could use his first name for a character. The man was disappointed it wasn’t used for a villain but got over it, maybe because Rayland is more of an anti-hero from what I’ve been told.
As for how I create character names, sometimes they just come to me. My big source of irritation is when I come up with a perfect name, only to discover on Google it belongs to some serial killer or celebrity I’ve never heard of. D’oh! So, then I have to play with first names and surnames until I find another fit. I always, always check on Google that whatever name I pick doesn’t belong to a celebrity, serial killer, or sports star. This is especially important considering I write erotica! Although in erotica shorts, a last name isn’t always necessary. It really depends on the tone of the piece.
Continuing with erotica name picking, sometimes I just have a character in mind and the name magically appears. But other times, I come up with an alliterative or punny title first, which drives the character name. For example, if I wanted to write a phone sex story with the working title “(Blank’s) Naughty Number,” the protagonist is getting a name that starts with the letter “N.” In other genres, this can be really hokey, but alliteration and puns are a borderline necessity in self-published erotica.
Personality also plays a big factor. A character who is a dominatrix, for example, is probably going to have a different name than a bubbly college freshman. After all, this is not real life where you could very well have a terrifying domme named “Bubbles” and a cutesy co-ed named “Severine.” In fiction, the names have to “gel.” There are exceptions, of course, certainly in cases of irony. But readers in each genre and niche do have certain expectations.
For my male erotica characters, I’m partial to names that end with “-ie” and “y” for some reason (Lenny, Joey, Frankie, Ricky, etc.) It definitely depends on the context though. Depending on the type of story I’m writing, I’ve also used unisex names like Skylar and Fabian. One name I just don’t think I could make work for an erotica protagonist is “Peter.” No offense to anyone named Peter, but given how many iconic cartoon characters have that name (Peter Rabbit, Peter Pan, Peter Griffin, etc.), plus the fact it can be slang for “penis-” I just can’t go there. It’s like Elmore Leonard’s hang-up with the name Frank.
As for female character names? There’s no real pattern that I can discern in my choices. I just try to make sure dominant characters have dominant sounding names that suit their personalities.
As long as Skylar and Fabian keep out of a nice Georgian historical!!! I only get bothered by names when a Kylie pops up in a Regency cozzie or a Jayden appears in chain mail. I once reviewed a Regency HR with a hero called something like Beauregard. I kept seeing moss covered trees and paddle wheelers instead of phaetons and so forth.
“As long as Skylar and Fabian keep out of a nice Georgian historical!!!”
Oh, heavens, no chance of that! I only use names like this for contemporaries. Like you, I also get bothered with anachronistic name choices in historicals. Or when the author gets cutesy with nicknames as in a duke named “Charles” going by “Chase.” It’s like some HR authors don’t want their protagonists to have an “ordinary” name, even though it would make a lot more sense. Heck! I wouldn’t mind a prolific author cycling through names for heroes and heroines as historically you would see a lot of “Charles,” “John,” “George,” “William,” and “Geoffrey” for the guys and “Jane,” “Mary, “Elizabeth,” “Katherine,” and “Helen” for the ladies. All this depends on time period and culture, of course. But I’m fairly certain there were no Jaydens and Kylies until modern times.
On the other hand, I am also surprised when a name is much older than we think it is. An HR heroine named “Briana,” for example, might sound historically inaccurate, but it actually dates back to 1590. Who would have thought?
For common historical names, there was a Regency author several years ago that wrote about having several heroes named George. I think it was Jo Beverley, but I couldn’t find a “Georges” book by her, so I may be remembering wrong.
For names older than many people think, Tiffany is a good example. It sounds modern, but isn’t. Heyer has a Tiffany (not the heroine) in one book. In English, Tiffany goes back to medieval times, and was linked to girls born on Epiphany (January 6).
I knew about Tiffany being an older name than people think, but I didn’t know it was linked to the Epiphany. Thanks for the fun fact of the day. :)
Yes, Jo Beverley had her 3 Georges whose stories were collected in the Three Heroes collection: The Dragon’s Bride, The Devil’s Heiress, and The Demon’s Mistress. They were friends who were known by nicknames in order to distinguish them from each other. The last is a novella that appeared in an anthology titled “In Praise of Younger Men”, and Beverley has a lovely essay on her website explaining how she came to write the story. Sadly, she passed away a few years ago.
https://www.jobev.com/youngm.html
As for Tiffany, it is a shortened form of Theophania and is, as you say, a name that is older than we think. It’s Greek and means God’s manifestation or appearance, which explains why it is associated with girls born on Epiphany.
The worst are those people who don’t bother to google stuff and complain about a character’s name- when it’s actually historically correct! I remember someone complaining about the name of Silence (Makepeace) Hollinsbrook in Hoyt’s Maiden lane series saying it was “dumb” when it was right on the money.
As for modern names it’s a crapshoot anyway. You never know what names people love or hate. I know so many women (when considering baby names) who have said “Oh I couldn’t name my daughter or son X, there was a kid I hated named that in grade school” (or High School or Middle School etc.)
LOL yes!!
Oh! A note about “Fabian” though. I haven’t done research specifically on Georgian names, but in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the gardener’s name is Fabian. So it definitely has a historical basis, but I’m guessing it was probably out of style by the Georgian era.
Hi Nan, thanks! Yes, a little bit of internet conflict-checking goes a long way. I actually have given one character (that I know of) the same name as a real-life actor, but aside from the name and the profession they have nothing in common (including gender); no one would think my character was based on that person.
With 7.8 billion people in the world, it is impossible to ensure that a fictional character’s name doesn’t match some real-life person’s. This is why publishers put that ‘this is a work of fiction, any resemblance to actual people or events is a coincidence’ disclaimer in.
Fictional business names are a stronger concern. It’s one thing to have a fictional ballroom studio called Shall We Dance – there are dozens of those in the real world. It’s another to assign a fictional TV production company the name of a real one.
“This is why publishers put that ‘this is a work of fiction, any resemblance to actual people or events is a coincidence’ disclaimer in.”
Right. It’s a good idea for the self-published author to do that too. I would argue it’s especially important to do so. Because as Joe Biel, indie press owner, once said, he really did have to mark his zombie apocalypse anthology as “fiction.” Seriously.