Thursday, March 27: Femme Fatale
DROPPING NAMES
by Deborah Elliott-Upton
In another column I mentioned a short story I was writing which deals with the throes of teenage puberty. My main character was a fourteen-year-old boy named Aidan, the most popular name for boys in 2007. Without exception, every reader didn’t just not identify with my protagonist, no one liked him at all. One even called him a sissy when he didn’t take a stand against the school bully. I changed his name to Jon. With no other changes to the manuscript, my main character became an instant underdog and hero. He found love and acceptance with a simple name change.
Does a name really make that much of a difference? Obviously it did to Archibald Leach, Marion Morrison and Sandra Zuck. We know them better as Cary Grant, John Wayne and Sandra Dee.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” — William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”, II, ii.
What name would we choose for ourselves if we suddenly needed an alias? Would this be a name more suited to our character or has our character been shaped by the name bestowed on us by our parents? It’s debatable, but I think written characters need to fit their place on the page.
Sam Spade, Mike Hammer and James Bond are hard-hitting names, like the characterizations their creators developed. Would anyone think they may be wimpy? Not a chance. Would they be as tough if they were known as Sammy Spade, Mikey Hammer or Jimmy Bond? Probably not.
Only a woman with a hard consonant-ending like “Scarlett” fit the indulgent female who fought for Tara as much as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind. The connotation of a man named Nero Wolfe immediately sends a sense of sophistication to my mind. A “Nero” would never do the legwork; leave that to everyman’s “Archie.”
My current work in progress – a mystery novel – has a prominent role for Mary’s husband’s ex-wife. More ditsy than devious, she factors in as a thorn in the side of my heroine. Wearing an air of “Mean Girls” toward Mary, I originally named her Beth. My writing group partners thought that name too tame and “nice.” I didn’t want the character to be evil, just spiteful at times and mostly living life without too many thoughts of consequences.
“She sounds like an Aspen,” one male writer said.
Everyone agreed, so Beth has been rechristened Aspen.
The public recognizes good writing no matter what name is on the cover, but using a pseudonym works for a lot of writers for differing reasons. Written early in his career, the hilarious No Score features a byline of Chip Harrison (aka Lawrence Block). When Stephen King saturated the market with horror stories, he resorted to publishing novels written as Richard Bachman. When the public seemed more open to male mystery writers writing about male protagonists, Doris Meredith wrote as D. R. Meredith.
In studying names, I discovered some interesting facts:
- People whose names begin with the letter J are 250% more likely to become millionaires compared to those with names beginning with the letter N. (J.K.Rowling, John Grisham and James North Patterson comes to mind.)
- Those named John, Peter or Katherine consistently earn more than Cody, Austin or Alexis.
- You are four times more likely to have a doctor whose name begins with I rather than O.
Would our lives improve if we changed our names? Or was Shakespeare right in saying our names do not matter?
Great post. I agree the perfect name can set an image and tone for the character before you as an author gives any other description.
I think Shakespeare was saying one might not be a family name or heritage in the eyes of someone else, because Romeo responds something to the effect, when I am in your love, I will no longer be Romeo. Badly paraphrased, but of course he’ll still be Romeo, but the name of his family won’t matter because their love will supercede that. But unless he legally changes it, he’s stuck with the “name” but the “soul” is who he became in Juliet’s eyes and vice versa. Good grief! That is way too complex.
I hated my name growing up because my mother made it up from my daddy’s name. Now lots of Alisa’s out there. I think having a different name DID make me different. I started out that way! I wanted to be Ann, or Beth (wait too nice!), but I wasn’t.
I think our name does play a certain role. However, I think we can overcome the good, bad, and/or indifferent.
I am so glad the Duke changed his name though. I just can’t see a “Marion” in boots and saying whatever he said. (not a fan)
Great article and though provoking….as usual.
Funny, last night’s news contained a squib about the sound of names of successful politicians and this morning I was reading an article on the sounds of names of characters.
I’m a believer in good character names. I wrote a database that harvested names off the web, something over 50,000 by now. I pay attention to the etymology, the sound, and the meaning. Once heroic names now sound wimpy to our modern ear.
Try being named Melodie.
Try being named Melodie.
Uh, no thanks. It’s not very manly.
I use my middle name in my byline because the world is loaded with James and Jim Warrens. There’s Jim Warren the comic book/monster magazine publisher who was sued into the ground by Harlan Ellison, there’s Jim Warren the Deputy Managing Editor at the Chicago Tribune who pops up on political talk shows, and there’s James L. Warren the San Francisco judge who tried the notorious case of the lesbian lawyer who was fatally mauled by her neighbor’s vicious dogs, just to mention three off the top of my head. There was even another Lieutenant James L. Warren when I was in the Navy.
As far as characters go, I very rarely use the first names I come up with in draft. Usually a character gets a place holder monicker until I can find something appropriate. Ethnicity and geographical origin are also important to me — I conceived Treviscoe, for example, as Cornish, so I definitely wanted a characteristically Cornish name. I found it on a road map of Cornwall.
I recently had a discussion with a friend over a detective she named Chandler. She was unaware that it is an occupational name like Smith, Cooper, or Tanner, and in fact is a pretty low class name — chandlers were originally candle sellers, but the appellation eventually got applied to the lower orders of retail merchant who sold gin by the barrel and loan sharked British sailors. Even now, the OED says its use is “often somewhat contemptuous.” That is not the image she wanted, of course. Even worse, in my view, though, was the fact that it’s the surname of the most prominent author of P.I. fiction.
By the way, there are only four classes of surnames, listed below. This knowledge can be helpful in choosing a name for a character. I’ve used British examples, but the principle is true for all languages.
(1) Patronymics. (Johnson, O’Rourke, MacDonald)
(2) Nicknames. (Longchamps, Lackland, Hornblower)
(3) Place names. (Wickham, Welch, Lester)
(4) Occupations. (Miller, Cartwright, Smith)
There were so many writers named “William A. White” in the 1930’s that Wm. A. P. White borrowed a family name and became Anthony Boucher. He named his wino ex-cop detective “Nick Noble.” Another James, James t. Smith jnr used his uncommon middle name and wrote as Thorne Smith creating names like “Cosmo Topper” and “Mr. Lawrence Lamb.”