Again, the Obsession with the Names

When I was in high school, this famous Dickens scholar came to speak to our school and he said that Dickens had three rules for writing that he had learned from his childhood nanny and her penchant for telling him horror stories. Now, for the life of me I can’t remember the other two, but I do remember his obsession with character names. Now, sometimes Dickens gets a tad outlandish with his names, but he can get an awful lot of play out of names with the right sound and cadence, if not out and out meaning. There’s a reason that “Scrooge” has passed into the lexicon.

I love character names. I spend a lot of time thinking about them. Every time I’ve worked in an industry where I come across names on a regular basis (say, a mail room, a publisher, an insurance company), I take note of names I think are interesting and different for use in later situations and stories.

Despite this, both of the main characters in my published/contracted books have names that came to me fully formed. Amy Haskel was Amy Haskel from the get-go. And I knew Astrid’s name was Astrid before I knew anything else about her (other than the fact that she was a unicorn hunter). The fact that both of these characters have names that start with A is a coincidence, though. I have no special interest in A names.

I have other strange stories about naming characters, though:

*I once wrote a character whose name changed in the middle of a page. I didn’t notice, and kept typing along, using the new name. When I finally realized what I’d done, I succumbed to the universe and went with the new name. His character was much better for it. When his name was Victor, he was a different person than when his name was Vincent. Still not sure why, since I don’t think the names Victor and Vincent necessarily have the connotations his character ended up having when I gave them to him. It may be like certain colors against different skin tones — they do totally different things to the base.

*That character had a sister, and though her name didn’t change, the spelling did. When I wrote the synopsis, I spelled her name one way. During the writing of the story, I became friends with someone who had the same name, spelled differently. When the character made her first appearance, she spelled her name like my friend. After finishing the story, it occurred to me that this character, who was not American, would actually pronounce her name quite differently. I still have a problem thinking of her in that way.

*I’ve since removed her from that story and put her in a different book, and as a nod to her prior incarnation, I’ve given her a name that’s a play on her old one.

*Poe didn’t have a real name for most of Secret Society Girl. True story. I never even use his name until Under the Rose.

*I once changed a character’s name three times while writing him (and after selling the story he was in — boy was I nervous to tell the editor I’d changed his name!) This one was on purpose. None of the other names stuck. The third one was the charm.

* Malcolm Cabot’s original last name wasn’t Cabot. The name I gave him belonged to a real politician (unbeknownst to me) and it was decided that we’d best change it, for legal purposes.

This is all very much on my mind, as I am grappling with the naming of a new character. I’m not quite sure what to call her. I’ve considered a bunch of different names, but none of them fit right yet. I’ve even given her a placeholder name for plotting purposes, but I still don’t like it. Every time I type it, it grates, like a sharp stone inside my boot.

For the readers amongst you: what do you think of character names? Do you like unusual names? “Normal” ones? Does it bother you when too many names in a story are too similar (same starting letters, same sounds or endings)?

For the writers, how do you choose character names?