Is she more a Scolastica or a Wymarka?

I've talked about names before, and how important they are for a writer, sometimes shaping the entire story, and definitely shaping the character's arc.  Who is this hero and what overriding traits does he have?  What's going to be this heroine's biggest test and her largest vulnerability?

Not sure why, but the right names helps find all that out.

Oh, the crazy human psyche.

I love choosing medieval names.  Well, I mean, there are also a lot of repeats in the name department.   I mean, a lot.  Of repeats.  Like in this paragraph.  Whether Norman or English or French, you find the same names repeated in the historical documents.  Alice, Agnes, Joan, Beatrice.  John, Richard, Geoffrey, Peter.   Over and over and over again.  And all those folks, without surnames.  :shakes head:

But there are also a lot of great names.  Evocative names.  Illustrative names.  Juicy, oh-there-has-to-be-a-story-there names.

Men's names, like Adelard, Basewin, Tancred, Serle and Saer (hero coming).  Percival, Ives, and Everard.  And oh my, the Irish names.  Aedh, Faolán, Lúcás, Siadhal.  It's sounds like a poem to me.

And the women's names.  Scolastica, Petronilla, Dyonisia, Wymarka, and Diamanda.  And the Irish: Áine, Sorcha, and Dubh Essa (which looks frightening, but sounds /Dove-essa/).

In my own books, I've loved some names so much I would hug them if they weren't, you know, a name.  i.e. breath, i.e. difficult to hug. 


Finian O'Melaghlin (IRISH WARRIOR), yes, it is a mouthful, but he's proud of his name, and Senna de Valery, the woman who freed him from prison, and whose mother loved color so much she named her daughter one, then left her. 



Eva (DEFIANT), who had no last name, and her hero Jamie Lost, whose name was given to him by the men who loved him and the ones who used him.


Sophia Darnley's (DECEPTION) first name was something entirely different in early drafts of the story, but Kier kept calling her "Sophie," so I had to change her name.  Those heroes...nothing but trouble.


I love when a name fits!   And not just in my romances. 

Bilbo Baggins is about the most perfect, fitting character name ever.   As is Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple.   And Hannibal Lecter. 

What character names 

have YOU loved? 

Name-Catching

Finding a character's 'true' name can be the simpliest thing in writing, or one of the most difficult. In either case, though, for me, doing so is like water: essential.

It's different if I'm reading.  In that case, names matter, but I can also skim over them if they don't work for me.   I'm an inveterate chunk-reader anyway, so I can  hum through any name that feels like a misfit, or that reminds me of the kid in 3rd grade who used to make truck sounds as he went through the cafeteria line every day, spraying the kids on either side of him with the effluvia of his sputtering. (Note: not sexy.)

But as a writer, I'm a lot less flexible on the name thing.   Names matter.   A lot.

It's kind of crazy, but for me, names let me truly 'see' the character.  They're a bit like clothes: they reveal truths about a person, from the fit to the style.  But they not only reveal; they create. 

Names 'find' characters, and then force them to be true to that name.

I've had to use 'placeholder' names for months on end because no name felt right.   Unfortunately, no name = I struggle to find the story, flailing through hundreds of pointless pages trying to find the story and the arc for this wrongly-named soul.  

Names can be pesky things, and catching the right one can be like trying to catch a butterfly in a hurricane.  So sad, for the story, for the characters, for any deadlines I had planned.  


But the moment I 'find' the name, I also find the story.   It's as if the story shakes itself out, like a dog, and the entire character arc appears.
I'm guessing I struggle with names when I haven't 'found' the story yet.  This creates a vicious, if masochistically pleasing, circle.  All I need to do is find the story, and I'll find the name, and vice versa, which is at once hopeful (the story's out there somewhere, right??) and hopeless (I'll never find it.)

A peek into the neurotic freefall of one writer's mind.

How much do character names matter to you?

Do you have any books that you've loved, but couldn't stand the hero/heroine names? 

Naming Characters

Naming characters is so much fun!  Except when it's not!  

Sometimes names just appear on the page, as if by magic.  They're perfect.  And by 'perfect' I mean they're appropriately lyrical and hopefully flush with meaning, and also good in bed.  You know, for shouting out while in bed.  

You'd be surprised how many names this eliminates. 

Or heck, I don't know you. Maybe you wouldn't be surprised at all.  That's good with me.

First names are most important, first names and nicknames.  Last names matter less, especially in the middle ages.   For me, last names are like a frame for a picture.  They can do good work--enhance and and highlight and, well, frame--but they're not the work.


One thing I sometimes do when the perfect name doesn't magically appear on the page, is come up with words that are "flush with meaning," but would sound silly in English--like liar or sexy or magic or shapeshifter--then find translations of those words in different languages. 


This can be especially lucrative for last names and nicknames.  Yep, 'lucrative,' because the right name is wealth, isn't it?  As a reader you know that.  The perfect name is worth its weight in gold.

Can you guess which names in any of my books that appeared like magic, and which I had to work at?    

What names of fictional characters have you loved?  Any you hated?