Rachael Eyre's Blog - Posts Tagged "character-names"
The Name Game
In my second to last entry, I let off a little steam on the subject of character names. Today I thought I'd expand upon it in more detail.
Let's get rid of a pernicious myth that seems to have grown up, shall we? The name is not the character- or, at least, it shouldn't be.
Think about it. When somebody is named in real time, there isn't a fairy hovering over the bassinet, saying, "Her name is Donatella Labonq, as befits the greatest porn star of all time!" The person fills the name, not the other way round; we only associate names like Genghis or Vlad with ruthless evil because of the most famous bearers of those names. Look at Harry Potter: before a certain boy wizard, he could have been anyone or anything- a bus driver, a company CEO. (And would the Dursleys really have housed somebody called Ezekiel Moonglow?)
This hang up seems to be left over from children's books and comics, where everybody has an incredibly appropriate moniker and appearance. I love these as much as the next person, but once you start writing serious fiction for adults, you really must stop such blatant tactics. Yes, a private eye with a jet black goatee called Jack Raven might sound cool, but if that's all you've got to go on, you'll end up with wafer thin characterisation and plot twists that surprise nobody. A guy called Cain kills his brother? You don't say!
Perhaps related to this, there seems to be a strange snobbishness about character names. Ordinary surnames like Evans or Williams are sniffed at as "too common" (I'm sure people with those surnames appreciate that!), ignoring a pertinent point: if your character has an "ordinary" name, there's far less chance of a real life person taking offence at you portraying them as a corrupt politician/wife murderer/ general slimeball etc, and suing you for every penny you've got. It sounds far fetched but such things have happened! There's also a tendency to peg people with certain names as chavs, trollops etc, surely saying far more about the reader's classist and sexist assumptions than anything else.
I had a run in with this kind of thinking with my second book, The Revenge of Rose Grubb. When the book wasn't selling as well as I would have liked, I went on the Author page and asked for feedback. While they said the main issue was with the cover and blurb- something I heartily agreed with, and fixed- one contributor said perhaps the name put readers off, saying it denoted an "unsympathetic character".
Now this I found bizarre. People can't help the names they're born with; the UK phone book teems with people called Death, Smelly and Crapper. Although the story's an urban fantasy, I've tried to keep it realistic in most places, meaning most of the characters aren't saddled with outré names. (Apart from the girl called Persephone, but that's another story) ... This seems to be going with the idea that everybody in fiction should have a glamorous, Mills and Boon surname like Dexter or Rushton- a notion I reject. I was also puzzled by the statement that Rose and Frances were "older" names; not only are the two women in their forties, but Brits regularly call babies names like Grace and Alfie, meaning there's no such thing as an 'anachronistic' name. (And, indeed, soon there's going to be a generation of grandparents called Scott and Kylie!)
There have been many debates about this, seemly and unseemly, but in the end it comes down to this simple test:
1) Does the name suit the character?- I don't mean this in the cut and paste, Saul Sinister sense but in the "Can you imagine him being called anything else?" sense. There is no reason why a man called Leeroy can't be a sensitive, devoted lover, or a girl called Felicity can't kick major ass. People are more than their names, after all!
2) Do you like the name?- Like anybody else, authors have names they love and names they loathe (I shan't list these for risk of offending anyone!) Naming a character after a personal hero or your worst enemy is absolutely fine, provided they're clearly a fictional creation and not lifted directly from life. Or it may be a happy coincidence: you may find that a pair of names sound great together, and- better still- perfectly fit that character who's just sauntered into your head.
Ultimately, your name is your key identifier throughout your life. You may find it embarrassing, grow fed up with it being misspelt or mistaken for every other name with the same letter, but it's your one and only name and you can't imagine being called anything else.
Let's get rid of a pernicious myth that seems to have grown up, shall we? The name is not the character- or, at least, it shouldn't be.
Think about it. When somebody is named in real time, there isn't a fairy hovering over the bassinet, saying, "Her name is Donatella Labonq, as befits the greatest porn star of all time!" The person fills the name, not the other way round; we only associate names like Genghis or Vlad with ruthless evil because of the most famous bearers of those names. Look at Harry Potter: before a certain boy wizard, he could have been anyone or anything- a bus driver, a company CEO. (And would the Dursleys really have housed somebody called Ezekiel Moonglow?)
This hang up seems to be left over from children's books and comics, where everybody has an incredibly appropriate moniker and appearance. I love these as much as the next person, but once you start writing serious fiction for adults, you really must stop such blatant tactics. Yes, a private eye with a jet black goatee called Jack Raven might sound cool, but if that's all you've got to go on, you'll end up with wafer thin characterisation and plot twists that surprise nobody. A guy called Cain kills his brother? You don't say!
Perhaps related to this, there seems to be a strange snobbishness about character names. Ordinary surnames like Evans or Williams are sniffed at as "too common" (I'm sure people with those surnames appreciate that!), ignoring a pertinent point: if your character has an "ordinary" name, there's far less chance of a real life person taking offence at you portraying them as a corrupt politician/wife murderer/ general slimeball etc, and suing you for every penny you've got. It sounds far fetched but such things have happened! There's also a tendency to peg people with certain names as chavs, trollops etc, surely saying far more about the reader's classist and sexist assumptions than anything else.
I had a run in with this kind of thinking with my second book, The Revenge of Rose Grubb. When the book wasn't selling as well as I would have liked, I went on the Author page and asked for feedback. While they said the main issue was with the cover and blurb- something I heartily agreed with, and fixed- one contributor said perhaps the name put readers off, saying it denoted an "unsympathetic character".
Now this I found bizarre. People can't help the names they're born with; the UK phone book teems with people called Death, Smelly and Crapper. Although the story's an urban fantasy, I've tried to keep it realistic in most places, meaning most of the characters aren't saddled with outré names. (Apart from the girl called Persephone, but that's another story) ... This seems to be going with the idea that everybody in fiction should have a glamorous, Mills and Boon surname like Dexter or Rushton- a notion I reject. I was also puzzled by the statement that Rose and Frances were "older" names; not only are the two women in their forties, but Brits regularly call babies names like Grace and Alfie, meaning there's no such thing as an 'anachronistic' name. (And, indeed, soon there's going to be a generation of grandparents called Scott and Kylie!)
There have been many debates about this, seemly and unseemly, but in the end it comes down to this simple test:
1) Does the name suit the character?- I don't mean this in the cut and paste, Saul Sinister sense but in the "Can you imagine him being called anything else?" sense. There is no reason why a man called Leeroy can't be a sensitive, devoted lover, or a girl called Felicity can't kick major ass. People are more than their names, after all!
2) Do you like the name?- Like anybody else, authors have names they love and names they loathe (I shan't list these for risk of offending anyone!) Naming a character after a personal hero or your worst enemy is absolutely fine, provided they're clearly a fictional creation and not lifted directly from life. Or it may be a happy coincidence: you may find that a pair of names sound great together, and- better still- perfectly fit that character who's just sauntered into your head.
Ultimately, your name is your key identifier throughout your life. You may find it embarrassing, grow fed up with it being misspelt or mistaken for every other name with the same letter, but it's your one and only name and you can't imagine being called anything else.
