Behynd the Name

My neck is thinnish. Not Audrey Hepburn thin, thank goodness, but a bit on the delicate, feminine side. Yes, it wouldn't take anything to chop my head off, I dare say. And I'm sticking it out there alongside Katie's in the matter of fantasy. She had a real bang-up post on the topic the other day that I couldn't help agreeing with, amending (or clarifying) her statement of "I don't really like fantasy" by saying "I don't like fantasy that is cliche, overdone, overbaked, overwrought, unimaginative..." It was a good post; you should read it. And I heartily agree with her, though I'm sure one could make the same assessment of just about any genre out there. There is the mighty mass of bad, and there are the good few.

But we know this sort of thing! We're good, educated, literatured citizens, some of us positive bibliophibians. We're trained to sniff out the good from the bad. I was happy to leave Katie's post and trundle on, whistling a happy tune, content that a fellow writer had struck a blow in favour of decent reading and writing.

And then I tripped on it. Walking across the blogosphere, I went and put my foot in it, and nearly my face, and after a brief and horrified stare at what I saw I felt the resolve harden in me. Something had to be done. No one had said anything yet. Something had to be done. I sailed into the living room, yardstick in hand doubling as a walking-stick that was very elegant in my own mind, arrested my poor unsuspecting husband, and told him in no uncertain terms (save that the fury in my head was tangling my tongue up) that some thing had to be done! My poor husband, taking me in stride as always, absolutely the best ever, laughed at me in a way that I took to be encouraging and my mind was made up. For better or for worse, for axe and for block, for liberty and the right to name characters, I was going to speak up.

It's the Y.

Have you noticed? Have you seen it? It's a cad, it really is, sneaking into one's fantasy, worming its way into the names of your characters, displacing otherwise law-abiding i's, all the while assuring you that it is making your character's name look "foreign" and "elegant" and "fantastic." That Y could sell washing machines to the devil. In the blink of an eye it becomes the defining, the tell-tale, the betraying mark of amateur fantasy. Oh, don't think I'm exempt. I keep a list of names I have invented over the years, most of them from my very early years. I don't use the list anymore because the names are so outlandish and painful, but it's a good example of what I am talking about. Take a look.

Ranviyer
Erynion
Elyason
Vanayel
Ithylen
Althya
Kyrry
Ryne
Jyny
Tym

I'll cease abusing your eyes. As you can see, these names are ridiculous, some of them positively unpronounceable, but all of them somehow distinctly belonging to a fantasy story. The fantastic, the otherworldly, hangs, not upon the character's personality or upbringing or nationality or customs, but upon the weirdness of his name. That's a slender and amateur thread on which to hang the fantasy of your story.

In favour of the Y I will say that its use is not a universal cop-out. Koby and Brandewyn, which are also in my list, manage to get away with it because Koby is a name you might find anywhere and Brandewyn is that sort of pretty faux-princess name a couple might give a daughter even now. And the Welsh are completely exempt from this principle because long ago they decided the alphabet didn't have enough vowels and they needed to make more. However, if you are not careful you are liable to have your story pegged as a fantasy (even if it is a fantasy) merely on your use of the Y. I find it to be either Welsh or amateur, and while I don't mind the one I'm not hankering to be pigeon-holed into the other, how about you?

My neck may or may not still be intact at this juncture. Like Katie, I like a good, solid fantasy and I don't like to waste my time on anything less than that. I don't think I read as much as she does, my natural taste tends more toward historical fiction, but I do have an array of fantasy in my library. So what about them? What are the names of their characters? What are the names used by authors who have "made it"?

Eltrap Meridon
Brandoch Daha
Roverandom
Puddleglum
Caspian
Curdie
Gorice
Tirian
Puck
Juss
Una

None of these make use of the over-fantasized Y, but all of them belong to fantasies. They all manage to be in their own way unique, decent, even strong. It is absolutely possible, and recommended, to find names for your characters that don't make use of the Y. Fight! Win! There are excellent names out there just waiting to be used. There is a wealth of imagination in your own brain just waiting to be tapped. Don't settle for the mediocre Y.