What’s in a name? Turns out, quite a bit. As humans, we tend to identify with our name. It doesn’t just tell others who we are, and how we are different from the next person, it tells us who we are. Take it from someone who was given a name at birth which I detested every day of my life util it occurred to me that I could change it. I did so because I finally saw that a name is a word – not who I am.
Authors do well to put some thought into the names of their characters because, to the reader, that IS who they are. It can be subtle or obvious, but the names we choose will affect how the reader feels about a character. The author might indicate that they don’t take the character seriously and neither should you (for instance, Polly Toodle). The name can have a dark overtone (Snidely Whiplash), or sound winsome, lighthearted (Miss Feathering).
There are a few standout authors that come to mind: Charles Dickens never gave a character a name like Bill Smith, certainly not one that he wanted us to notice. Character names in Dickens tell us exactly what kind of person we are talking about. Ebenezer Scrooge – a name so uncomfortable that you already want to duck in his presence. Uriah Heep. You already detest the man after hearing that name.
Some of my favorite Dickensian names are from his novel Martin Chuzzlewit, How about ‘Seth Pecksniff’, a man as hypocritical a they come. Dickens described him thus: ‘Some people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there.’
Or, Zephaniah Scadder, who Dickens describes thusly: ‘… a gaunt man in a huge straw hat, and a coat of green stuff. The weather being hot, he had no cravat, and wore his shirt collar wide open; so that every time he spoke something was seen to twitch and jerk up in his throat, like the little hammers in a harpsichord when the notes are struck. Perhaps it was the Truth feebly endeavouring to leap to his lips. If so, it never reached them.’
Yes, Dickens was a master prose stylist, no matter what you might think of his twee plots or his grinding sarcasm. It must b admitted, though, that his eponymously named books have names that make you feel you know the character already: Oliver Twist. David Copperfield. Martin Chuzzlewit (already mentioned). And what about John Podsnap. Inspector Bucket. Lord Stiltstalking. Anne Chickenstalker. I’d be thrilled to have made up any of those names.
Of course, we all know that even modern Brits can have funny names and completely fail to be embarrassed by them. I once worked with a team of brilliant engineering minds in England who saw nothing odd about names like Shufflebottom, Spittle, Boob, or Grabhorn.
Another favorite author is Iain Banks, for you science fiction fans will be nodding. Ah yes, the Culture ships. Banks was an original, almost hard to characterize within the sci fi pantheon. Was it hard sci-fi, rivets-and-gears stuff? Was it fantasy? Satire? All of the above, along with some social commentary and cracking good reads, every book he wrote. Many of them are novels of The Culture, a race that dominates the galaxy with their superior technology, advanced science, and a military that outguns everyone, by a long shot. The Culture makes make heavy use of their space-faring vehicles, some of which are whole cities – planets even. The ships are controlled by a Mind, that’s an artificial intelligence in today’s parlance, but they are so much more. The ships have distinct personalities, attitudes, capabilities, and are completely self-directed, they are individuals who are part of The Culture, not tools used by it. Banks lets us know exactly how autonomous and advanced these ship-minds are by how they named themselves. These names were not made up by the humans! I am going to just list a few of my favorites although, like potato chips, it is hard to stop after one, or one hundred. Remember, these are massively powerful ships that make the Star Wars Imperial battleships look like toys, and this is how they choose to be identified:
You Call This Clean?
So Much For Subtlety
Beats Working
Kiss My Ass
Frank Exchange of Views
I Said, I’ve Got A Big Stick
I Blame The Parents
Size Isn’t Everything [this particular ship happens to be over 80 kilometers long]
Funny, It Worked Last Time…
I Thought He Was With You.
… and my all-time favorite ship name:
Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry
The thing about Banks’s ship minds naming themselves in these ridiculous ways is that we get a sense of how superior they are – they don’t NEED strong, masculine, aggressive names. They run the universe, and they know it. When you’re that powerful, you can joke about yourself. (BTW, if you haven’t read Banks, I advise you to look at him. Every science fiction writer worth his salt has allegiance to him, has learned at his feet, and wishes, really, that they were a quarter as original.)
An article about naming wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy. Gormenghast Castle has been the home of the Groan dynasty for centuries; its current patriarch is Sepulchrave Groan, the father of Titus Groan and his sister, Fuchsia. Other characters are the cook, Swelter, Doctor Prunesquallor, Professors Cutflower, Perch-Prism, Throd, Flannelcat, and of course, Opus Fluke. You can’t read one page of any of the Gormenghast books (which are among the most unique in the entire speculative fiction oeuvre) without a visceral sense of what kind of person is, the instant you hear their name. Flay the groundskeeper. Sourdust, lord of the library. Nannie Slagg.
As a writer I’ve created plenty of wryly amusing names – but I bow, with gratitude, to those who have gone before and set the bar so satisfyingly high.
[cover image courtesy of Martha Sales]