It would be nice if some authors really did have a good old think when naming their characters.
Here, by my foot, as I type, is a terribly thrilling thriller named Land of the Living, by Nicci French. I think it came free with a magazine - I do hope so, as I have absolutely no memory of buying it and I like to think I have some control of the Book Mountain [Your husband says not - Ed]. I have not read beyond the first chapter, despite being quite keen on thrilly books, for one sole sad and saggy little reason. My suspension of disbelief got snapped way early. On the very first page, in fact. Because of the lead character’s name.
The book starts in the first person. A woman is recovering consciousness, and trying to remember where she is and who she is. She slowly recalls that her first name is Abbie. Then:
The other name was harder…. I remembered a class register. Auster, Bishop, Brown, Byrne, Cassini, Cole, Daley, Devereaux, Eve, Finch, Fry. No, stop. Go back. Finch. No. Devereaux. Yes, that was it. A rhyme came to me. A rhyme from long, long ago. Not Deverox like box. Nor Deveroo like shoe. But Devereaux like show. Abbie Devereaux.
And at that point I chucked the book back on the floor and went back to The Diary of a Provincial Lady.
Now, the class register is cute. I don’t mind that. And Abbie Devereaux is a perfectly good name for a heroine. No. What bugged the absolute britches off me was the little rhyme to tell us, the clottish readers, how to pronounce Devereaux. For all I know, a person recovering consciousness might indeed recall some patronising little piece of toshery they used to piss their class-mates right off with. But I have a hard-to-pronounce surname, and I have on several occasions, slow and bewildered, recovered consciousness and wondered what the buggery hell my name was. I have not once pondered to myself on its pronounciation, despite the fact only about 17% of my acquaintance ever get it right and my school-fellows used to have a very unkind nickname for me to reflect my obsession with getting them to say it correctly. Because, if you are sounding off class registers in your head, or whatever else, to try and see which name dings you over the crumpet with possessive intent, you do not need to work out how to pronounce it. It has just SOUNDED in your head. It is, ergo, pronounced.
And I really, really hate being patronised as to how to pronounce names of non-Anglo-Saxon origin. We, the reader, are not all illiterate xenophobes, readers tend not to be for some inexplicable reason, and if we were, we’d hardly be gunning for a lassie called Devereaux, would we? And patronised on this issue by an author called Nicci, no less. I grew up in Italy, as far as I’m concerned she’s pronounced ‘Nietzsche’ and if she doesn’t like it she can damn well wang a K in there.
So, names. As TS Eliot so exceedingly famously remarked, ‘The naming of cats is a difficult matter.’ Personally, I find naming characters rather more fun than actually writing the novel, but it is clear to me that quite a few novelists find it beyond tedious and would give them all serial numbers if their agents would only let them. Hence that hoary old advice in many, many ‘How to write novels’ books to look probable names up in the telephone directory. I say, please don’t. I feel so sad when faced with page after page of William Browns chasing John Smiths and getting off with Susan Joneses. I mean yes, obviously, most people ARE called Susan Jones. But, even in real life, not everyone is. In my immense smugness, I have compiled some points and/or pieces of advice which are possibly more useful [Smug little… oh. You’ve said already].
- Do not fall into the opposite trap of the telephone directory (the anti-directory), and have all your characters called Finarfin Bolderdash and Arabella Ramsbottom-Smythe. Unless you are taking the piss, of course. In which case, knock yourself out.
- No pronounciation guides. Certainly not on the first page. Certainly not wafting about in the narrator’s consciousness on her own damn name. If you must inform us, have someone take the mick. For a good example of how to do this, see Reginald Hill’s Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel (pronounced, of course, Dee-yell, as the Z is actually a yogh).
- Doing a Dickens and making the name fit the character (Cheeryble Brothers, Gradgrind, Wackford Squeers, M’Choakumchild) is very jolly, but really looked a little demented by the time Anthony Trollope (Dr Pessimist Anticant, anyone?) was doing it. Mind you, he wasn’t quite so damn funny as Dickens. It can still be amusing to do this subtly, for one or two characters. I have a character called Ian Happy, for example. And a Superintendent called Martin Able. The big irritant in my hero’s working life is called Mark Price. None of them names that’ll make you bat an eyelid, but. Heh heh heh.
- Try to have a reason for and history behind each name. Even the William Browns of this world were named that for a reason - it wasn’t chosen by computer, à la The Dispossessed. [But SF&F names are another post for another day, OK? Or we’ll be here until midnight]. My hero, Jiro Watanabe Smith, is so named because his idiot teenage mother thought it would be romantic to name him after his (swiftly sent back home) teenage Japanese father. Jiro is her (and his father’s) first son, Jiro is a traditional Japanese name for a second son. His issues with his unusual heritage, and difficulties being accepted by both the British and the Japanese communities, are pretty much signalled right there in the spectacularly inappropriate name. Not that I will explain this in the novel, oh no. But Jiro knows, and I know he knows.
- Buy a good dictionary of first names. By ‘good’, I mean for God’s sake eschew all pastel coloured ones with darling infants on the front cover. Also, avoid any that are less than half an inch thick. Make sure there are long, comprehensive entries for each name, listing culture of origin, history, etymology, variants, and possibly even famous bearers. Most ‘baby name’ books have the etymologies wrong, are nauseatingly sentimental, and have no proper context for any given name. Hence recent outburst of dark-haired people called Rory, or, God have mercy, Ruaridh, I suppose. Seriously, if you name a character, say, Glyndwr Jones, and have him trotting about Wales in the 18th century, you’ll feel a right tit when someone points out Glyndwr only came into use as a first name in the early 20th century. As they invariably will. The Penguin Dictionary of First Names is pretty good. It’s the one I am slowly battering to papery oblivion.
- If you know nothing, or, worse, very little, about the culture you are depicting, don’t go there. A novel set in small-town America, in which every woman is called Darlene and every man Chuck or Hank, will make you look like a twit. Ditto and more so a story I saw once (luckily in manuscript), set in Calcutta, in which the men were called Sanjay and Asok and the women Zainab and Fatima. In the same family. Because all Indian Hindus name their sons from Sanskrit and their daughters from the Koran.
- Try to keep the names age-appropriate. Some authors really have a tin ear for naming fashions. I really have read books set today in which everyone, whether eight or eighty, has been called Pat and Jean and Alfred and Horace. And one or two in which everyone has been Jack and Chloe and Luke and Kayleigh. The Penguin Dictionary has lists at the back for which names were most popular for the past ten decades. That kind of thing is really quite useful.
- And, finally, nothing hacks me personally off more than getting about a third of the way into a modern novel and realising all the men are still referred to as ‘Smith’ and ‘Petersen’ and ‘Farquhar’ and all the women as ‘Susie’ and ‘Lilian’ and ‘Maisie’, regardless of how well we know the character and the character’s status in relation to the point-of-view character. What the hell is this, Jane Austen? Even Dickens, that arch, oh, so arch, Victorian didn’t do anything quite so galumphingly crass.
Beautifully funny, Reed, and also most instructive. You do care very much about names, as should we all.
Left by charlotte on May 16th, 2007
Ooh. At last, someone else with a tricky surname getting tormented with rhyming slang in the sandbox. I got called Drainpipe. Best days of your life, my arse.
But the Nicci French book is actually worth plowing on with, honest, even if Abbie’s going to be a source of irritation; it’ll give you serious pause when thinking about memory, identity…it has a good vengeful twist involving thumbs, too. Very dodgy speeches though. And Nicci French is an amalgamation-y name for a husband and wife writing team, Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, which may lead to the Editor demanding acknowledgement in your nom de plume, so perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it….oops. Sorry about that. Look, don’t trust me. I still can’t read Dickens because of the bloody names.
PPS Boundless thanks for the Penguin tip, though. Also the definition of ‘yogh’ - not only had the velar thing been worrying me for a while, but I now have another weapon in my puny Scrabble arsenal.
Left by Fugitive Pieces on May 17th, 2007
The names thing is why I never managed to get further than about page fifty of War & Peace. It was just too difficult to keep track of people and I gave up. More than once.
I agree wholeheartedly about the irritation that jarring names will cause. It spoils the enjoyment of what might otherwise have been a reasonable read.
Cleopatra Carruthers definitely falls into category 1 of Reed’s Rules; completely silly and OTT - but we did have immense fun :sigh:
In my job we meet a lot of different people and come across some very strange spellings of names. It’s hard to tell if they just wanted to be different and thought it was classy, couldn’t spell in the first place, watched too many episodes of the Rikki Lake Show - or if dad was staggeringly drunk and insensible when he went to register the birth.
Left by Teuchter on May 17th, 2007
Ooh, I loved this post! I too have a surname that is always mispronounced but I don’t tell anyone how to pronounce it unless they ask because it’s so funny to hear the manglings. I had a boss who used to pronounce it as if it was French - Pa-ro-ooh-shaaaa. I quite liked that one. But it’s handy when the telemarketers phone up and ask if they’re speaking to “Mr Parocker” (despite the fact a female has obviously answered the phone) because then I can say: “Nobody of that name lives here. Bye!”
Funnily enough I spent yesterday evening agonising over what to call two minor characters in my story and ended up, after a trillion mind changes, with Rubylyn and Laarnie… and flagrant violation of rule 1! And 6! Oh well. The buggers don’t appear that often and I don’t want to go back to the other names I had because they were so boring I was getting depressed.
I like Ian Happy! More of Ian Happy!
Left by Helen on May 17th, 2007
“Seth and Reuben too”
In Germany I just pronounced my name with a German accent, and suddenly they could all spell it. Magic. No real German has ever used my surname but Teutonicising it made my life there much easier. Ho yuss.
My maiden name, on t’other hand, I left gleefully behind at the church door when I skipped down the aisle all those years ago. No-one who isn’t a born Geordie can pronounce the damn thing without blinking, and because of a family diaspora in the 1920s I come from south of the Trent let alone south of the Tyne.
Very interesting about Yogh.
Incidentally, I want Menzies Campbell to stay; the fact that the next election will be a battle between Gordon and Ming is the only good and cheeful thing in British politics right now.
Aphra.
Left by Aphra Behn on May 18th, 2007
I have just had to chastise a crass commenter on my blog. He said, “seriously, Bush is really not the WORST thing that could of happened to the states…Imagine Hillary!” I lost my temper and replied, “at least allow Mrs Clinton the privilige of a surname and don’t exude your failed Falwell sexism all over my nice clean blog.”
Sorry about sounding off. He annoyed me! I also forgot that my blog isn’t always squeaky clean.
Left by Archie on May 18th, 2007
Lovely post, Reed. Didn’t Iris Murdoch write a novel with about six Helens? Funny how that happens in life. In my first year at uni, I was one of four Eds in my social circle.
There is a poetry to sci-fi character naming. A personal favourite is Douglas Hill’s space-mafia enforcer, Pulvidon. Sounds like a Decepticon lieutenant. Now I mention Transformers, I still tingle at the thought of the trio of warplanes in formation: Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp. Way to make you buy the same toy three times in different colours! Onslaught. Ratchet. Wheeljack. Mirage. Grimlock. Feel the testosterone. (OK, Mirage lacks the plosives, but he was a toff spy, and usually got his diodes kicked by, y’know, Vortex or Shockwave or Cyclonus. And you can tell from the name.) The decline in the toys was matched with literary burnout - two-headed plastic monsters called Hun-Grrr. No, I don’t think it has any naff charm.
Left by Ed on May 21st, 2007
I want to read the book with six Helens in it! It sounds like an excellent read.
Left by Helen on May 21st, 2007
Late addition: as proof that we all actually live in an amateurish novel, this weekend I went out socialising with my new colleagues and met a cheerful Northern lass. Her name, perhaps inevitably, is Joy Collier.
Left by Ed on May 21st, 2007
I am so keeping Joy Collier for future use.
Left by Reed on May 21st, 2007
I’m more likely to use Thundercracker myself.
Left by Ed on May 21st, 2007
Thundercracker. Indeed. Up there with DeathWind.
Left by Reed on May 21st, 2007
Deathwind is teetering into parody. If it could be a Spinal Tap song title, it’s a shade too far…
Left by Ed on May 21st, 2007
And Thundercracker isn\’t?
Left by Reed on May 21st, 2007
There lies between them the infinitesimal difference between Dickens and Trollope, I’d say. This is clearly a matter of fine taste and discernment, however, and if you find Thundercracker more obviously flatulent than DeathWind, I shall defend to the death your right to say so.
Left by Ed on May 21st, 2007
Enjoyed this post, Reed. Thank you. I was born a Smith and stayed that way through both of my husbands, who had names that are hard to pronounce and impossible to spell. Nowadays, people seem to spell names whatever way they darn well want to, and not just because they are drunk. Tyffuniy? I read a fair amount of science fiction along with the thrillers and mysteries and other stuff that comes across my life. I get so annoyed with authors who provide me with names like Ngrich or Ysdrefl to struggle with for the entire novel. How are they supposed to be pronounced? I “have” to hear the names in my head when I read, and it bugs me when I can’t. And why on earth do they want to spend all that time typing those collections of letters? What is wrong with Bob and Joe?
Left by healingmagichands on May 26th, 2007
I read Lord of the Rings first when I was delirious. About half way through my mother, who was bringing me more tea, found me fretfully crying about the fact that everybody had the same names and I couldn’t work out why people who were supposed to be dead kept showing up in the arrative again later.
Put me right off for years.
Anyway. One of the things I particularly liked about your novel were the names. All the care you take over it certainly pays off.
Left by Sol on May 26th, 2007