What’s In A Name?
I recently had a question come up in my Posse Facebook group about how I come up with names for my characters.
Selecting my character names is one of my favorite parts of the brainstorming process. It’s amazing how much a name helps me imagine who the character is. Not only do I want the names I select for my characters to sound good and roll easily off the reader’s tongue, but I love to give extra meaning to the names, perhaps a meaning that no one else will ever pick up on besides me.
I love using biblical names and historic names, but the real fun comes when I start playing with them. Sometimes the meanings connect to the novel’s theme or some other deeper meaning, but more often they employ a play on words in a way that gives me a reason to smile even when working with these characters day after day.
For example, the leads in Head in the Clouds – Adelaide is a teacher who’s last name is Proctor (synonym for teacher) and Gideon Westcott runs a sheep ranch – tying in to the wet/dry fleece of the biblical Gideon. Then there are the Archer brothers who were all named for heroes from the Alamo. In fact, I have an that talks about some of the plays on names that my characters embody.
Do I ever change character names? Once I settle on my main characters’ names, those almost never change. They become too closely entwined in the character’s identity. However, I have changed the names of small side characters several times. Two times rather recently, I had to change a name of a minor character during the last proofreading stage when I realized I was using the same name for a more significant character in the book I was currently writing.
The more books I write, the harder it is to remember which names have been used or not. I write down the names of significant characters in my notes for each book, but I rarely keep track of those throwaway characters.
Funny Story – Sometimes readers who binge-read books can find things we as authors never intended. I had a reader post a question in Goodreads a few years ago with this observation: “I recently noticed that you have had three characters named Emma! The pastor’s wife in To Win Her Heart, Jacob’s Sister in Love on the Mend and of course Emma Chandler. Is there something special about that name?”
Since these books were written years apart, I had no idea this had happened! Here was my reply: ” I’ve always liked the name Emma and it has a wonderful historical feel, but I didn’t realize that I had used it three times. At least I can take comfort in the fact that, according to the social security website, Emma was the third most popular girl’s name for nearly the entire 1880s decade. So since there were a lot of Emmas running around in the late 19th century, I guess it’s only natural to have three show up in my books. At least that’s the story I’m sticking to. Ha!”
Question for you:
Have you ever run across your own name or the name of a friend/family member as a character in a book? Did that change your reading experience? Did you find yourself attributing personality traits to the character based on the person you knew in the real world?
Book on Sale!
As a bonus, here’s the inside scoop on Charlotte and Stone’s names from A Worthy Pursuit. I chose the heroine’s name after a fan on Facebook suggested I should use her daughter’s name – Charlotte. Since Charlotte Bronte is my favorite classic author and the name is a beautiful, historic name that would fit well with my prim headmistress, I did just that. I had a little more fun with the hero. He is a tough, loner type who had been making his own way in the world since he was a boy orphaned at an early age. Stone just seemed like the right name for him (even though he’s gooey on the inside, like all good tough guy heroes). There is actually a play on his name inside the book where he is written into a dime novel under a not-very-well-disguised pseudonym – Stone Hammond becomes Hammer Rockwell in his dime novel debut.
Grab a copy while it’s on sale from your favorite e-retailer.
