Names Names Names

I’m doing preliminary work on my new book right now, which means I’m deep in name-research mode. I need names for characters, for places and for a few things, too. I love coming up with names. Lovelovelove.

In fact, this became something of an issue when we were trying to come up with a name for our daughter last year — because Sailor Boy was of the “brainstorm, decide, and move on” mindset and I scoured name sites and books and did ridiculous amounts of research on every name we came across. I felt I couldn’t possibly put less effort into picking a name for an actual human being than I did in picking a name for one of my fictional characters, and I already obsessed mightily over that. And then of course, AFTER we named her, there was more angst, because I can go and change character names at any time I want to (hi, Giovanni), but after we’d told everyone what her name was, it would be a lot harder to go back and say, “Oops.” (Rather like changing a character’s name AFTER publication.)

So anyway, names. Names have been pretty important in all the books I’ve written. In Secret Society Girl, the characters had mostly common names (Amy, Jenny, George, Jamie) in contrast to their fanciful codenames. In Rampant, the characters all had names that spoke to their family legacy of being unicorn hunters (Philippa means “horse lover” and Cornelia, “horn”). In For Darkness Shows the Stars, character names actually have social significance. (I live in horror of being told to change my character names because of those in another book, as Ally Condie did and as Maggie Stiefvater was once asked to do.)

So now I’m working on a new book. The character names haven’t quite gelled yet. I’m pretty decided on my heroine’s name, though it might be a controversial choice. Opinion seems split down the middle of the folks I’ve asked, but it fits her so well. The other main character has a “working name” but I’m still a bit worried about it. However, it’s one of those things where the more I use it, the more I’m sure it’s his name (especially since none of the alternatives I’ve thought of seem to fit). I’ve decided on names for many of the secondary characters, but I’m still waffling over the name of the villain. I know the sounds I want, but I’m having a problem fitting them into a name that jumps up and sings to me.

Sometimes names come right away. Astrid’s name came at the same time as her character. Others were a matter of thought, like Amy. And others plagued me for draft after draft. But, just as in naming children, when the names you’ve used before start to limit your choices for future names (Can’t have a Charles and a Diana), the names I’ve given characters before limit what I can use now. For instance, I don’t know how I can use Seth or Micah again, even though both are names I love.

Since I”m not yet ready to talk about the names from For Darkness Shows the Stars, let me talk for a moment about the names from the short stories I published last year (since I don’t think I’ve done that yet).

Wen, in “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn” came quickly to me. I wanted something short and gender-neutral (I was thinking a lot about Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird), and fit with my vision of Wen as being small but tough. Yves, in that story, was the name I was dying to use for him from the start, because he reminded me so much of a guy I knew named Yves. There was a question about it for a while, since a few readers did not know how to pronounce it, or if they did, wondered if it was too “girly” to use. But I’m glad I kept it. Flower/Flayer... well, the former is from Bambi. I always loved the irony of naming a Skunk “Flower — and it seemed amusingly ill-suited to a killer unicorn, too. Flayer is a good change, and was a worthy match with Bonegrinder.

Elise, in “Errant” was another name that I knew from the moment I began. She came to me, all pale and pretty and seemingly ornamental, but with hidden bite. Elise elides off the tongue, and leaves a hiss behind. Plus, it’s French. Gitta I had to search for. I wanted a German name, and something very strong. Brigitta (Gitta’s full name) has been a favorite ever since The Sound of Music, and the nickname had the appropriate guttural sound to match with my rough-and-tumble warrior nun. Adolphe, the villain… that’s self-explanatory.