IS IT YOU?

Character names are important. They create an image before a description is even given. Take Edward Murdstone, the cruel stepfather in David Copperfield; Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s; Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; and Humbert Humbert from Lolita, to name a few. Personalities are often imbued by names. Whatever and whoever they are, the character’s name must be greater than the mundane.

I started with baby name guides to find first names or surnames that would be indicative of personality. Kevin: Irish for “handsome, beautiful.” Sarah: Hebrew for “princess.” Mark: Latin for “warlike.” Carol: English for “free person, or song.” After a while, that seemed too tedious. While it appealed to my poetic sensibilities, it didn’t allow for unique names that I was simply unaware of.

I moved on to the phone book. I could flip through, land randomly on a page, and find all sorts of names. The sonic quality at this point was more appealing. Finding a unique and real name allowed me to impose a kind of personality onto a character simply by how a name sounded. However, with the scarcity of landline phones and the almost complete disappearance of the phone directory, I needed to move on.

It then occurred to me I could engage my family, friends, and co-workers in my writing by using their names, or variations thereof, as characters. In writing historical crime fiction, I had a far greater number of male characters but worked with a higher percentage of females. While some were thrilled to “be in the book”, they did have to get over being a male character.

The first real person to make the cut, so to speak, was Heather Devore. We worked in two different departments which were about to merge. I unceremoniously approached her in the break room, declaring she had a GREAT name for a femme fatale and I would love to use it in a future book. Caught off guard, she merely responded with one request: that I make the character hot and sexy. Heather is a dear friend and one of my biggest advocates.

I have lost track over the last eight years how many known individuals have entered the realm of literary infamy. When I think about it, I might give someone a heads up. Perhaps they buy a copy, read through, looking for the villain or victim they might be. Maybe they ask “Is that me?”