Thwackum, Squeers and Griffiths
Back in the day, a top author – such as Henry Fielding, who died in 1754 – would enjoy giving some of his characters names like Mr Thwackum (a savage clergyman and schoolmaster) and Squire Allworthy (a man as virtuous as his name suggests.)
Charles Dickens, a century or more later, wasn’t quite as direct, but you can still hear the character suggestion come through pretty clearly in names like Ebenezer Scrooge (a miser), Uriah Heep (an unctuous sycophant), Tiny Tim (the one to generate the tears), Thomas Gradgrind (a fact-obsessed school superintendent), Wackford Squeers (a cruel headmaster), Estella (beautiful, but distant – like a star), and so on.
These days, we generally don’t do that. The problem with those names is that they hang a huge placard round the neck of the character. “Hey, I’m Allworthy. You don’t even have to think about who I am – you don’t have to scrutinise the way I talk and act and make choices – because look at this great big placard. I’m ALL-WORTHY, right? Look how great I am.”
In effect, the name compresses the space in which the character can operate – and a book without characters isn’t going to be worth all that much.
Dickens’s names aren’t quite as blatant as Henry Fielding, but the sheer improbability of a ‘Wackford Squeers’ announce the author’s intention almost as directly. The placard is smaller, but it’s still there.
The modern approach therefore tends to be sadly dull, You might have a Gradgrind-y type character, let’s say, but you’d call him or her something like Mark Pettigrew or Samantha Anderson. Your ideal name is just interesting enough to remember, but just boring enough that it’s not calling attention to itself (Jabberwocky Jones or Bianca Blanco.)
Likewise, you’ll think not just of your star players, but your team sheet as a whole. You might love the name Rhodri for a friend of your protagonist, but if you already have a Rhys, a Rob, a Rhian and a Rhydian, your reader is going to get seriously confused.
This advice so far has all been very sensible, but, but, but …
Isn’t there a halfway house, perhaps? Something that could add flavour without simply depriving the character of space in which to operate?
And the answer, surely, is yes. The trick is to add a bayleaf or two, not the whole damn kitchen cupboard. (I learned this trick from my colleague, Sarah Juckes, by the way, then realised I’d already been doing something similar, but unconsciously.)
The idea is that you choose a character’s name that refers, even in the most oblique way, to some deep-lying essence of the person. So, in Sarah’s Outside, her characters are trapped in a single, horrible room. The name Willow suggested something of the outdoors – the yearning for it, as well perhaps as the slender-but-tough whippiness of a willow stick. It’s a lovely way to encapsulate a feeling – but at the same time, the name is common enough that it doesn’t break the basic Mark Pettigrew / Samantha Anderson naming convention.
What’s more the name does make a difference. You can almost feel the energy the book gets as a result. If you doubt me, just try giving Willow the name Samantha Anderson. You’d never choose to make that switch, would you?
I used to think I don’t play a lot of those games in my Welsh fiction, or at least that I did so only very sparingly. In the first book, I allowed my main character, Fiona “Fi” Griffiths, to meditate on her name:
Fi. That’s ‘if’ backwards.
Griffiths. Nice ordinary name, but two more ‘if’s lurking at the heart of it. My name, literally, is as iffy as you can get. The only solid sound, the only one you can actually hang on to, is that opening G, and it’s not to be trusted.
Elsewhere, I don’t muck around much. My other series characters are really named just to be plausibly Welsh (in most cases) and of the right approximate generation.
But when I explore more closely, I do often end up with names that carry a scent.
In my current (much-delayed) WIP, the doctor in charge of a secure psychiatric hospital is called Etta Gulleford. That is a striking name, of course. It commands attention, just as the woman in question is also striking and commanding. Is the name a bit disconcerting, perhaps? Hard to place? Probably, and if so, that fits with her character too.
The inmate in that hospital that Fiona is most interested in also has a non-standard name, Jared Coad. Again, that’s not quite so unusual it challenges the boundaries of realism. And I mostly chose it because it was plausible and yet memorable. A two-syllable name to remember.
But, thinking more about it, I think there’s more going on there too. Jared is an Old Testament biblical name. The character is a damaged warrior, but with depths of virtue. A dangerous prophet? An ancient Judaic king? Those echoes do work for the character on the page – magnificent, avenging, doomed. The splash of antiquity somehow adds a useful dimension to an otherwise very twenty-first century character.
I’ll quite often change characters names as I write a draft, twisting this way and that way until I have something that feels right. That feeling comes by touch and feel: I’m not at all programmatic about it. And sometimes, to be honest, the names never quite feel right. They nag at me long after publication.
(Which brings me to a further tip, actually. Unless you are really sure of your choice of name, only use names where you can use the Find and Replace tool easily. That means avoiding a name like Jo, because it forms a part of too many ordinary words (jogging, banjo, and the like. If you use a name like Joely, you get the same kind of flavour but the Find and Replace tool will still work for you.)
I’d really love to know how you name your characters and, in particular, how you manage to add a hint of character or depth into a name that still seems like a plausible choice for the character concerned. And no, fantasy authors, you don’t get the day off. I want to know how you pick names too. Voldemort isn’t a name you’d give to a good guy, is it? I guess the “mort” part of that name is bringing hints of death, but I probably wouldn’t lend my wallet to someone whose name began “Volde” either. So, yep, SF and fantasy authors too: I want to know how you come up with names.
Don’t email to tell me. Share your thoughts in the comments below. Let’s have a heated debate …
I’ve always thought that maps are a wonderful source of potential surnames. So many English surnames derive from places and there’s a wonderful array of obscure village names to choose from/be inspired by.
How interesting!
Took my own advice and spent some time in the road map. Just looking at English village names from a handful of counties I gleaned dozens of interesting surnames. Having said that there are place names that would be more challenging to appropriate: Germansweek, Black Dog, Mockbeggar, Nomansland, Worlds End, Pease Pottage, Newbuildings, Warningcamp, Balls Cross.
Pease Pottage – triangular head with black curl at the point, sagging abdomen with button missing at the belly – HA!
English villages have the best names. Endless pleasures there.
I write mostly fantasy but I have several naming methods.
1. I play around with real names and vary the spelling or I just make up lots of words until I find one that sounds like a good name.
2. I use my parents Baby Name book they got and look through it to find either less common names or names where the meaning might have something to do with the character.
3. I watch the credits of films and make a note of interesting first names and surnames to maybe combine later.
4. I also look at the spines of books in mine, parents, grandparents and other peoples libraries (some of those National Trust property libraries have very interesting books). The older the better often and take part of the authors name. I found my protagonist’s love interest’s surname from a old book in my Grandparents’ cabinet library in their sun room.
5. I google uncommon names. There are plenty of sites that have lists for giving your baby an unusual name. Nameberry is quite good.
6. I occasionally create a naming convention/rule and I use it for all my names.
7. I look at Latin names and use a variation. (Sometimes works for naming creatures)
Those are some of the ways I generate names of characters. There are also some names I won’t use because they relate to closely to someone I know etc. 🙂
This is a really inventive list, Rebecca! I often notice names in film credits but have never actually used any. How amusing that you can dig into old family books.
That’s dedication!! I’m impressed
I rely on sound and rhythm as much as meaning, and the naming can be pretty intuitive.
If there’s an intimate relationship — romance, family, dear friend — I also try to use a name that has appropriate nicknames for the character’s personality.
Sometimes a name is associated with a talent: Natasha Cointepas is a ballerina.
My WIP is situated in Prague, the Czechs have Czech names, and I have had fun suggesting political stances with a few of them. A department director whose friendly personality helps him to hide black-listed material in his department has a name which suggests happiness or gaiety. A secret police informer’s name suggests silence or something tacit.
My next novel is going to contain a few characters inspired by some of my cats, including their names – Oshi and Youcki.
I like buried names like that: references that are clear to speakers of one language not another. In my last FG novel, she refers directly to the Big Secret Thing that everyone is chasing … but she does so in Welsh, so only 1% of my readers will understand.
Gosh, you all think a lot more deeply than me! (Maybe that’s why I haven’t managed to get a mega book deal yet!) I just think of a name that suits the character. As I get to know the character and the other people around them a particular name just sounds right. Sometimes a name pops into my head quite at random and demands to be made into a character.
It’s an interesting topic though, isn’t it? Since my novel WIP is historical with most of the characters coming with their names, and my non-fiction project not requiring names, it’s in short stories that I most often get to pick names. And so far they’ve simply been what is vaguely appropriate to age and social grouping.
Yes mine are just vaguely appropriate to age, era and social group. They just “fit” the person. The only name I really thought about was the elephant in my first attempt at a children’s picture book. I had been playing with rhymes “Debra the Zebra, Brian the Lion” but I thought a story in Africa needed an elephant. If I called him “Grant the Elephant” or something it would just sound like I tried to rhyme and failed. Then one day Nigel came trundling into my brain and decided he was the main character. I don’t know where it came from but he came fully formed with his personality and it suited him. My kids liked him anyway.
Yep, but maybe when you look, the name you’ve chosen will be spot on – it’ll the the Yiddish for something that just perfectly describes your character. Gut feel works too.
Love your blogs, Harry. This made me think of Dickens’ Aged P—loved that name when I was 15, not as fond of it now!! When I began planning for my novel—set in 11th century Scotland—all I kept thinking of was living in England when I was in first form and riding the bus every morning listening to the mandolin and Rod Stewart’s raspy voice as the sun rose over the Cotswolds (seriously the same song just like Groundhog Day)—I wanted my character to be Maggie—but I do have more sense than to use an overused name for a Scottish female. I decided on Mercia because my character’s lineage is from the Kingdom of Mercia on her mother’s side, and the English name helps to add to the outcast feeling she has in Duncan’s court. It also carries a subtle connection to the mercy she needs to show her father by the end of the story.
Mercia’s good. Spot on
I write dystopian fantasy. My first series has four protagonists, with each name having significance as follows:
Carla Romero: A woman who used to love the idea of romance but has been so damaged that she won’t allow a man to touch her. Her surname is thus a poor attempt at romance.
Junior Gitau: Kenyan man who lives far too much in the past, reliving, reviewing and blaming himself for his mistakes. It prevents him from realising his potential; he’s still ‘junior’.
Blessing Karimi: Often reflects on the irony of her name as she goes through repeated aching losses and distressing experiences. At one point describes her name as ‘a lie’.
Logan Hedges: Changed his surname to his mother’s maiden name. Humanity is trapped underground in my series and he hoped to be a catalyst to returning to “the Open”, hence the obvious use of a symbol of he outdoors.
My series covers many nationalities so I try to provide authenticity in naming conventions there as well by looking at meanings in those cultures to send subtle messages about their character.
Double letters feature in the town and character names in one WIP. They represent the way energy is multiplied in the town to help the inhabitants achieve their aspirations.
I am still in drafting stage of several stories that I assume will end up as novels in terms of word count and so on. The characters in these stories come pretty much fully fledged with their story lines when that happens. At this stage, I have a couple of dozen characters all of whom are named or close to being. For the SciFi/Fantasy, I use names of creatures indigenous to my country creatures, e.g., a flightless bird known for its cheekiness. One character is very cute and is always finding things that he likes and just takes them. He’s not a thief and makes absolutely no attempt to hide them. Those around him know what h’s like, so know where to go if they want their whatever is they’ve noticed is not in its usual place. Another character was named after a young man in one of our pubs who remembered I was the woman who’d left her hat there. It was weeks, maybe even a couple of months between visits and I was so impressed that he’d kept the note and recognised me. He a rugby player, so has the brawn along with his sensitivity. I loved those features. Others, I have sought names on the internet for them and, sometimes, the name just pops out. The majority have first and last names and the first names are often abbreviated somehow for the reader’s ease, but also because my family is such a one for doing this. All our babies, and there have been quite a few, were named at birth accompanied by a naming ceremony, then they promptly get called something else for the rest of their lives!!!
At age nine, my first complete story was about kids napped by two napping brothers named Ted and Edward Beakenbone. I didn’t know that Ted and Edwards were… you know! My mum couln’t stop laughing at the Beakenbone bit…
I like that. I was trying to work out how they kidnapped them while napping 💤
Me, too!
One of my main characters is called Lina. Her recently departed friend insisted on calling her ‘Luna’, with a glint in his eye, which he never explained. The reason for his nickname becomes apparent after his death when she meets the second main character, Sol.