James James BoBames: The Historical Fiction Name Game
Writing historical fiction makes some things easier and some harder. Because some of your characters are likely historical, it saves you the trouble of thinking of names.
But sometimes you get stuck with the challenge of repetition. You would never intentionally name two or three characters Frank, for instance, unless that has a point in your story (most writers even avoid having characters whose names have the same first letter!). It would be a constant hassle for you and your readers to distinguish the characters in dialogue. It reminds me that when I was in law school, there were too many Matts (that's when I transitioned to Matthew, actually, so to family and pre-law school friends I'm still Matt). I sometimes hear expecting parents deliberate names based on whether too many people would have the same, though obviously not everyone is concerned with that. In The Dante Club, two of the members of the historical group of Dante translators were named James. Poet James Russell Lowell and Publisher James T. Fields. My solution was to refer to Fields only as J. T. Fields or just Fields.
Little did I know I'd have the same doubling with my third novel, The Last Dickens. This time I focus on the publishing house that is set to publish Dickens's final book. When Dickens dies, they must search for the ending of the novel before their adversaries beat them. The two partners in the firm? You got it, James and James. My old friend James T. Fields and his junior partner, James Ripley Osgood. I reused my "J. T. Fields" trick from The Dante Club, since Osgood is the true hero of the book.
For fictional characters, I sometimes make a name a tribute. In The Dante Club, I named fictional Patrolman Nicholas Rey after Octave Rey, a groundbreaking African-American policeman during reconstruction. In The Poe Shadow, Quentin Hobson Clark, the narrator and protagonist, is named after Faulkner's troubled Quentin Compson as well as superb Poe biographer Arthur Hobson Quinn.
By the way, how nice it was in writing The Last Dickens to have a hero, an all around good guy, named Osgood. Here's where historical fiction works in your favor. If I had invented the name, I'd probably be accused of being too obvious, or too Dickensian.
Have you ever been around too many people with the same name, or your name?
But sometimes you get stuck with the challenge of repetition. You would never intentionally name two or three characters Frank, for instance, unless that has a point in your story (most writers even avoid having characters whose names have the same first letter!). It would be a constant hassle for you and your readers to distinguish the characters in dialogue. It reminds me that when I was in law school, there were too many Matts (that's when I transitioned to Matthew, actually, so to family and pre-law school friends I'm still Matt). I sometimes hear expecting parents deliberate names based on whether too many people would have the same, though obviously not everyone is concerned with that. In The Dante Club, two of the members of the historical group of Dante translators were named James. Poet James Russell Lowell and Publisher James T. Fields. My solution was to refer to Fields only as J. T. Fields or just Fields.
Little did I know I'd have the same doubling with my third novel, The Last Dickens. This time I focus on the publishing house that is set to publish Dickens's final book. When Dickens dies, they must search for the ending of the novel before their adversaries beat them. The two partners in the firm? You got it, James and James. My old friend James T. Fields and his junior partner, James Ripley Osgood. I reused my "J. T. Fields" trick from The Dante Club, since Osgood is the true hero of the book.
For fictional characters, I sometimes make a name a tribute. In The Dante Club, I named fictional Patrolman Nicholas Rey after Octave Rey, a groundbreaking African-American policeman during reconstruction. In The Poe Shadow, Quentin Hobson Clark, the narrator and protagonist, is named after Faulkner's troubled Quentin Compson as well as superb Poe biographer Arthur Hobson Quinn.
By the way, how nice it was in writing The Last Dickens to have a hero, an all around good guy, named Osgood. Here's where historical fiction works in your favor. If I had invented the name, I'd probably be accused of being too obvious, or too Dickensian.
Have you ever been around too many people with the same name, or your name?
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Camrose
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Aug 17, 2011 08:35PM
Yes, and I appreciate how you handled the two Jameses. It is so irritating when an author doesn't help you out with that kind of situation and you're always checking back to see who is being discussed!
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Yes I have and what a mix-up! Especially if you are related or good friends.
