On names

Currently, I'm percolating a couple of stories in my head. One of them is set in the Mad, Bad & Dangerous/Almost Human world, and features a demirep heroine and a rather shady hero. She has a name--Elena--but he doesn't.

Why do I have more trouble naming male characters than female? Perhaps because there's a broader range of heroine characteristics, and names to suit, than there are male. I've written heroines who were short or tall, thin or voluptuous, bright or sharp or sweet (well, maybe not that sweet) or clever or clumsy or beautiful or shy. Whereas my heroes tend, broadly, to fall into the tall, muscular, smart, handsome, handy-with-a-weapon and handy-with-a-quip category.

And there are only so many names to suit them. Why is it that I can write a heroine with a daft name and let her grow into it, but can't quite do the same for my heroes? Although I have been known to give them embarrassing names they tend not to use (Tanner, who turned up in Almost Human, is universally known by his surname since he hates being called Leander).

Who was it who said the true test of literary worth was whether a man could name a kitten? I've named eight, and they've all grown into their names. Here's a hint: if you want to turn your male cat gay, call him Tinkerbell (I was six, and I thought he was a girl anyway). I named the next male cat Spike, in an attempt to make him manly, but he turned out to be incredibly beautiful, deadly in a rather elegant way, but really rather fond of his creature comforts and secretly loves his mummy. I realised I'd named him after my favourite vampire--well, he has white hair and eyes that are both yellow and blue--and he'd taken on extra characteristics too. Or maybe I'm just projecting.

His name is Spike. And yes, I seriously considered calling my black kittens Angel and Drusilla.

But back to character names. Some are just overused--the old Predator+Geographical Feature title for a hero (Hawksmoor, Wolfsea, Hipporiver etc). I confess I did once name a werewolf character Wolfe, and gave him a werecat heroine called Kat, but I was being ironic. Honest.

The problem with this guy is that he's a shapeshifter (well, he's a Nasc, if anyone's been reading Almost Human), and his animal is an eagle, or a hawk, or some other kind of raptor. I need a name that fits him.

I like finding names that fit a character, names that sound right out loud. For a hard, harsh character I chose Harker--he's also a man who keeps his ear to the ground, hence 'hark'. For Sophie's mentally agile and emotionally brittle lover I went with Luke Sharpe. It's a fast, cunning name, hard but not brutal, keen, acute, smart. Plus if you have a Northern accent it's actually quite funny. The hero of Almost Human was Dark, because he's dark-eyed and dark-haired, but also dark-souled, tormented and angry. Kett's feckless mate in Mad, Bad & Dangerous was Bael--a demonic name, and a homonym for bail, which is what he often needs to get out of jail. The dangerous, unpredictable mercenary of After the Fall was Carver, a name I didn't even need to think about. He's a man who is, quite simply, lethal, and won't think twice about slitting an enemy's throat (or, as Jayne from Serenity put it: "Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight... or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid - mostly only when I'm gettin' paid.").

So. A name for an orphan boy, born on the streets, a thief and a con, trained as a soldier, educated as a gentleman, working as a mercenary, had his memories stolen, running for his life. Oh, and he can turn into an eagle.

I'm going to end up calling him Hawke, aren't I?

Rockstars

Warning: thinking-out-loud for fifty paces.

Okay, so my current Wip has as its hero an improbably named rockstar. Why? Because I did once of those silly name generator memes a few months ago and Spike St John was just too good to let go. But our Spike is so named because his father was a seventies rockstar who may have been ingesting illegal substances when it came to choosing names. And now I need a name for his band.

What's a good name for a seventies rock band? I've been Googling around using a couple of random generators, and while I like a few of them, none are quite right, such as Immortal Coma (a bit emo), Cheerful Pixel (too Noughties), Babe of the Remote Bazooka (gloriously silly, but there are no girls in the band).

I'll try a different approach--similar to the one that got me Spike's name.

1. The first article title on the Wikipedia Random Articles page is the name of your band.
2. The last four words of the very last quotation on the Random Quotations page is the title of your album.
3. The third picture in Flickr's Interesting Photos From The Last 7 Days is your album cover.

This gets me: Bumper Knot and their album To Get Some Help. The album cover is this:
Perhaps I need to keep trying.

Inspector Lewis would never believe me

"I carry hell about me; all my blood
Is fired in swift revenge."

It's a funny thing, how much importance gets attached to quotes and favourite books on TV. Someone quotes from Sophocles, and everyone assumes he's in love with his mother. It just so happens that one of my favourite plays is John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, but of course the theme of that is incest between siblings. Were I a suspect in an episode of Lewis, therefore, it would be assumed that I'm in love with my brother. And I'm really not.

The reason I love the play is the beauty of the language, the absolute poetry that's less flowery than Shakespeare, but just as evocative. The quote above is from Soranzo, when he discovers that his new wife, Annabella, is already pregnant by someone else--the someone else being her brother, Giovanni. That's weird and icky, but if they weren't related, their courtship would be wonderfully romantic. Giovanni tells Annabella: "I envy not the mightiest man alive, But hold myself in being king of thee More great than were I king of all the world." That's gorgeous; but unlikely to be used in any wedding speeches because of the connotations.

Still, Mr Ford has inspired a brilliant ship's name. I'm halfway through the second Empire Book, which now has the title Burning Desires, and of course my pirate merman hero needs a ship--and that ship needs a name. (The last ship I named in a book ended up being called Target. The hero thought this was funny). From Soranzo's line, I got my ship name. The Swift Revenge. Pretty good, eh?

Argh, etc.

I've restarted Empire 2...twice. I've made a list of possible titles. I've gone looking for cover art. And my hero still doesn't have a frigging name. He's going to turn up in a couple of pages, and I can't call him {insert name here}...can I? Actually, I do know some people who do this--or at least give their characters temporary names until better ones come along. But personally speaking, I find it really had to write about someone until they have the right name.

It doesn't help much that I gave my last hero about ten names. Well, he had one in the narrative, but plenty of aliases.

I need a name for an ex-soldier (on the losing side) captain of a gay pirate ship. Oh, and he's a Merman. And yes, I have solved the Mermaid Problem.

(It doesn't help that, courtesy of an ill-thought-out Christmas present, Mamma Mia is playing downstairs. Again. I am NOT calling my hero Bjorn)

Names

(okay, the world didn't end. But they're still firing it up)

So, this morning my mum read in the paper that Clarissa Dickson Wright's full name is Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright, which, quite apart from almost being child abuse, must take her forever to initial clauses and correct cheques. The other week I read that Dido's full name is Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong (at least, being a Christmas Day baby, she was spared the cliche of Noelle). And I recalled reading in Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue about a WWI army major labouring under the almost endless name of (take a deep breath) Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraduati (it gets better) Tollemache-Tollemache-de (still here? keep breathing) Orellana-Plantaganet-Tollemache-Tollemache.

Quite apart from the breathtaking madness of four uses of the same name, I think it's Denys coupled with Fraduati that really gets me. Denys: the guy who sold you your third-hand car. Fraduati: a bohemian artist from Florence.

So, naturally, it got me thinking about character names. My own name, in full, has twenty-one letters and seven syllables (most of which come from my middle name, Elizabeth, without which I've a paltry eleven letters and three common sylables). When I was little, I used to hate being called Kate, very boring and pedestrian, not even Katherine. I preferred Elizabeth. You could be a princess with a name like Elizabeth (I always wanted to be a princess. It was the clothes, you see). There was never a Princess Kate (although give Wills and Kate a few years and we'll see). Now I quite like it, not least because it's easy to spell and people can usually pronounce it correctly.

My characters have to have names that reflect them. Sometimes it happens accidentally, as with Sophie (who was originally called Sally). I gave her the surname Green because I wanted her name to be entirely ordinary (much as Fleming gave James Bond an ordinary name). Later I realised it describes her fledgeling status perfectly. Luke Sharpe, on the other hand, I named purposefully: he's all acute angles and biting wit. He's smart, he's quick, he's a great shot. He is, basically, sharp.

Plus there's a minor pun in his name, or at least there is if you can do a northern accent.

I named Major Harker because I wanted a name that was, again, hard and sharp, but a little less refined, a bit rougher. Harker is a harsh sound, it's unpleasant to say and sounds like it's being barked out--well, he is a military man. He's an officer by virtue of hard work and promotion, not class and commission. His name also has a more literal sense: I ended up cutting a scene in which his 2ic explains that Harker, while never reading memos, always knows what's going on because he has his ear to the ground.

Striker took ages to name. I remember sitting there with my massive thesaurus and a pad of paper, trying to find the right name. I looked up all sort of synonyms for hard, cutting, cruel, harsh--those sorts of names. His love-rival I named Tanner--a warm name, like summer sun or supple leather. Incidentally, I gave them both nicknames or surnames--their real names are Captain Leander Tanner (nearly always addressed by his rank and/or surname; he does Not Like being called Leander) and Ganymedes Lorek (a person Striker stopped being many years ago).

Chance and Dark came, fully-formed, with their names. I can't imagine them being called anything else. Chance is a person who isn't supposed to exist, who's only there in one out of thousands or millions of realities. Dark is someone with a lot of demons inside him. I gave him a proper name, but it didn't seem like it belonged to him.

For me the names have to suit the characters, but also the universe they inhabit. Since I don't write historicals, I don't have to worry so much about accuracy, but even a contemporary character has to have a name that matches their age and social background. You wouldn't have an aging society lady named Chantelle, any more than a modern teenager would be called Doris. For my fantasy characters, I like to have a bit more fun, and sometimes make up names or use obscure ones--although what's obscure to me might be very ordinary to someone else.

Then again, you can have fun with names anywhere. I named Harker's sister-in-law Tallulah Watling-Coburg just because I felt like giving her a silly name (and I felt she could cope with it). Sophie's shadowy associate is called Macbeth, and no one ever finds out his real name (I don't even know it). In The Book That's Still Being Ignored the heroine is called Lolita Muffy, usually shortened to Loli. That was mostly me being silly, but the tone of the book is very light and fun (and it affords the hero, no slouch himself with the name Benedick, plenty of opportunities to playfully tease her).

What are your favourites? Are there names you just can't stand for characters, and why? Do you have favourites? (I keep naming characters Jack and Will, please stop me.)

But the day I in all seriousness call a character Reighnbeaux, feel free to shoot me.

There are no Cats in the USA

Kate Johnson:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 354 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Cat Marsters:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

(Apparently, there is no one in America called Cat! No, surely not! Although there are 332 people called Marsters).

Sophie Green:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 80 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

More on names

...including the ever-popular How Can I Fit My Cats Into This Conversation game. Well, how, you ask? By telling you that Spike's name was cause for some serious thought. He's only the second male pet I've ever had (two female dogs and three female cats preceded him and Sugar). The first, my darling Tinker, was quite simply the gayest cat in existence. He was beautiful, dapper, and effeminate, and I've no doubt that this was due in no small part to the fact that when we got him and his sister, Willow, we thought we had two girls, and christened him Tinkerbell (I was six, okay?). By the time we discovered our little fairy was actually a boy, and shortened his name to Tinker, the damage was already done. For the last few years, I called him Tinkerbell. He minced.

Consequently, when we acquired Fluff & Fluffier, I was determined to give my boy cat a butch name. I'll make a man of this one, I decided. I'm not going to gay him up. So I called him Spike. Spike. Like the dog in Tom & Jerry, or the henchman in Storm Front, or yes, even my favourite vampire. It's a good manly name, is Spike.

Unfortunately, then my gorgeous boy turned out to be heartbreakingly pretty and has spent most of his ten months being cuddled and pampered. As a result, he's turned into a total mummy's boy who, last night, allowed a strange black and white cat into the house. Twice. While his mummy chased the bugger out, Spike hid under the kitchen table.

But then again, Spike the vampire was a mummy's boy too. Maybe I'll call my next cat Pansy and just have done with it...

Anyway. Names, as I said earlier in the week, are important. The naming of a character is a difficult matter and I know I'm not alone in saying it's sometimes hard to write a character if they don't have the right name. Sometimes the name pops up with the character, fully-formed--Luke Sharpe, for instance, turned up in my head without any name changes. So did Chance in Almost Human, although I do remember that when I first created her father, it took me bloody ages to come up with Striker. Now, of course, I can't think of him being called anything else. It's the same with Sophie. She actually started out life as a Sally, but that never quite suited her and it wasn't until she got her new name that I could really write her.

Her surname, however, was something of an accident. Sophie Green. I really just wanted a name that was ordinary, easy to spell, and wouldn't make anyone look twice. Only later did I realise quite how appropriate it was: Sophie's as green as can be. Luke, on the other hand, didn't end up with his surname by accident (quite apart from the fact that it's damn funny to say out loud). I wanted a name that fitted him as a character: sharp-eyed, sharp-minded, sharp-shooter. He's even a sharp dresser. There's nothing soft and fuzzy about Luke--well, not until you know him better.

I have been known to name characters deliberately using words that fit them as people. I have a work-in-progress with a character named Harker. Say it out loud: it's a harsh, sharp word; an onomatopaeic name (did I spell that right?), for a man who doesn't have much space in his life for softness. Similarly, when I came across Dare as an abbreviation of Darien, I knew I had to use it for the devil-may-care hero of She Who Dares (yes, the title came later).

It's a trick a lot of worthies have used. Dickens famously gave his characters outrageous names which perfectly suited them. Look at Bill Sykes: he was a psycho. And William Makepeace Thackery did it to perfection in Vanity Fair with another Sharp, this one Becky; the steadfast Dobbin; the odious Sir Pitt Crawley. In more modern times, the great Pratchett has given us Sam Vimes, a grubby, disreputable name; and Bernard Cornwell his eponymous Richard Sharpe (see, it's a good ol' name, isn't it?).

Incidentally, I read the other day that there's a high ioncidence of people taking on jobs which resemble their names. Geographers called Geoffrey, and dentists called Denise, that sort of thing. I guess this means I should be living in a cattery...no wait, I practically do...

What other examples of clever naming do you know? And do you know any characters who've been terribly badly named?

What's in a name?

That which we call a rose, by any other name, would still smell so sweet.

Yeah, but would it? If it was called a Stinkweed, would you even let your nose near it? I may have misquoted that above, by the way. I'm doing it from memory.

Yesterday in The Times there was a feature--a whole separate booklet, even!--on names. On what they mean, and what they mean for you. Are Richards and Davids really more likely to succeed than Waynes and Kevins? Why do teachers give higher marks to Emmas than to Kayleighs? Should it be considered child cruelty to name your kid Reignbeaux? (yes. Yes, it should. Do you want the kid to get beaten up in the playground?).

So of course I look up my own name. Now, I was actually christened Kate. Not, as my mother restrospectively wishes, Katharine; but just plain Kate. And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst, But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom, Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate... (okay, I had to look that one up. But snaps to me for having a Shakespearean name, right?).

But here's the thing. I can never find 'Kate' on a mug or a door plaque. Katie, yes. Katharine, Catherine, and everything in between. And yes, I know, one name comes from another. I know the Greek root of it ('pure', if that's not funny enough). I know that all Caitlins and Kathleens are from the same root and mean the same thing.

But they're not the same, are they? Picture someone called Katharine, and someone called Catherine. To me, one is a 60s filmstar riding around on a bicycle with Paul Newman, and the other is the cosy lady who lived at the end of my street when I was little. Picture Kate, and Katie. Moss, Winslet? Holmes, Price? They're different names. I honestly don't know if the Ms's Winslet, Moss, Blanchett, Holmes etc were christened Katherine and chose to shorten their names. but I think the diminutive you choose, or is chosen for you, can make a huge difference in the way you're seen or the way you act. Look at the difference between Liz, Lizzie, Lilibet, Beth, Bethan, Betty, Bess...all from the same name (which is, incidentally, my middle name).

When I was picking out a pseudonym to write under (with two very different kinds of books, I wanted two different names) I went through various different names. For a while I considered changing my name entirely to Jamie (one of my favourite boy's names, and one I'd doubtless overuse otherwise). But Cat wasn't hard to settle on. With my well-known love of all things feline, it's a certainly in my house that if I had actually been christened Katharine, I'd have been nicknamed Cat. It's nice to finally get the name I always thought I should have.

Names are so crucial to the way a person is perceived that it can take a long, long time to name a character. But more on that later--that's several blogposts all in one!

What do you think of your own name? Would you pick a different moniker if you could--or have you already?