Three chapters and 13,300+ words into my book, I just changed the names of three characters. They don’t play major roles in the story, but two of them live in the town of Baybury Shores and they appear as recurring characters in the mini stories I post on my Baybury Shores blog and Facebook page. Whether a person appears just a couple of times in a story or is a main character, though, getting the name right is important.
I spend a lot of time on creating names because in some cases I’ve written about the same characters in many stories over a period of nearly forty years. I have lived with these folks for a long time. I plan to live with the new ones for some years to come.
The changes in my current work in progress are because I forgot about some of my own rules for creating good names.
A name should have a clear pronunciation and should easily trip off the tongue.
Oliver Twist, Spenser, the Grinch, Miss Marple, Zaphod Beeblebrox. Long or short, domestic or alien, a name must scan easily. Readers must know how it sounds when spoken aloud. Two of the character names I changed had spellings that could cause confusion and didn’t flow naturally in ways that were pleasant to the ear. I try to void difficult and clumsy sounding names.
A name should reflect its time and place of origin.
To sound true to the character, a fair amount of thought should be given to when and where the person was named, as well as who named them. When a writer names a character, the writer is acting in the place of that character’s parents. Popular names, and even unpopular ones, vary through history. Perennial favorites endure simply because so many people have them, from family and friends to well-known celebrities. Mary, Elizabeth, Matthew, and John are not only Biblical but also the names of Queens and Popes, movie stars, aunts and uncles. But many names come and go out of fashion over decades and centuries.
Today you won’t find many people in their twenties or thirties who are named Chester or Eunice. Likewise, you wouldn’t have found any Kaylees or Jaydens roaming the streets in the 1920s. And both given names and surnames can reflect particular regions or countries of origin. A lot of Norwegian immigrants wound up in Minnesota and many Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Hawaiian people have a Portuguese heritage. A good number of New England names date back to English colonists beginning with the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620. Some traditional Black American names evolved from the days when slaves were given or adopted names of their owners or were inspired by influential Christian leaders.
Names might be subtle or not so subtle plays on common words and phrases.
Since my fiction has always been what might be classified as “cozy” and humorous, I personally love offbeat names that involve wordplay. Olive Drabbe is a pun and is descriptive. Josephine F. Buxom is, in fact, buxom, though I’ve never actually written a physical description of her. The Pawsock family came about because one of them was a baseball fan who played softball, which reminded me of the Pawtucket Red Sox, known as the PawSox. To me, Micky Pawsock sounds like a guy you would hear announced as the next batter in the lineup. I have yet to create a Ford Harrison, but that’s not outside the realm of possibility for me.
The editor/publisher of the town newspaper was one of the characters whose name I just changed. She was Gladys Macoun, because originally I had apple names stuck in my head for some unknown reason—Liz McIntosh, Marge Braeburn, Carla Pink-Crisp. So Gladys Macoun started reporting the news in Baybury Shores. But was that pronounced Ma-cown, Ma-cow-an, or Macoon? Even I didn’t know. And wouldn’t it be a better handle for the owner of a cider mill than for a journalist? Gladys wasn’t bad as a given name, but it didn’t have the right ring for that character I was imagining. The more I saw Gladys Macoun on the page, the more I felt the need to change her name. I started thinking of women’s names from the ’30s and ’40s, which was when she would have been born. And then I thought of the antique gray manual typewriter I have stored in my cellar. The editor of the Bay Current is now Doris Underwood. (She cruises around town on a red Vespa motor scooter, but that’s beside the point.)
One character’s name should not be easily confused with another’s.
Another change in my book came about because I had a guy called Theo Rove. And that was perfectly fine as far as it went. However, another important character was named Eugene Rye and a supporting character named Theodora Borden. (Her name I will never, ever change in a million years.) But having a Theodora and a Theo in the same book wasn’t a great idea. And Rye and Rove where too close in my mind. As the story progressed, I found that Rove’s wife was going to be a Portuguese woman who reads fortunes at the Renaissance faire where they are both cast members. They come from East Providence, RI. Theo Rove is now Alberto Lima. His name won’t get mixed up with anybody else. An added benefit is he now has a richer cultural background.
Readers should not get mixed up about who’s who. There probably shouldn’t be a Maryjane and a Marianne in the same book, nor a John and a Jonathan and a Johann in close proximity. In one instance, it took me a while to realize, because the characters had been mentioned so far apart, that police officer Wally Pollock worked under Chief Walter Boggs Jr., putting too many Wallys in the cramped police station. The chief, a minor character at this point, is now Chester Boggs Jr.
Be careful of stereotypes.
Yes, I know, in his 1965 children’s book Busy Busy World, Richard Scarry created a panda character and named him Ah-Choo of Hong Kong. We should strive not to do things like that today.
Previously, I mentioned places of origin and parents. When creating characters of different ethnic, racial, or cultural backgrounds, it is important to research authentic names that real parents have given to their children in specific places and times. It’s best to mix and match actual given names and surnames. Completely making things up can result in regrettable, insulting monikers. Care must be taken that “clever” or “humorous” names will not be interpreted as being disrespectful. Naming an Irish person Brian O’Brien would simply be having some fun, but making up a comical name for the chief of an Indigenous tribe would be insensitive, at the very least.
I have been guilty of poor judgement myself when attempted humor resulted in a character name which may have seemed more acceptable years ago when I wrote it but which my awareness today would never allow me to use.
It’s work, but it’s worth it.
Character names do not have to be unique to your book. But remember, you will never see a Boo Radley, Huckleberry Finn, Arly Hanks, or Sam Gamgee outside of their respective books. Outstanding characters have names that stand out.
The town I’m currently creating does not have a large population yet, so I’ll be having fun creating new people and giving them names for some time to come.
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