Naming Characters

Am I the Only One?

I have to wonder if I’m the only person who has trouble naming my characters. Do you, by chance, agonize over your characters’ names? Please say that you do (even if it’s not true).

Exotic Names

Part of the problem, for me, is that I’m drawn to exotic names. I have a character in one book named Genesis. Her friends, of course, call her Gene. She was told by her parents that she was so named because her Mom was studying Genesis in her Torah study group. But really! Who names their daughter Genesis? Thus far, I can’t seem to let go of the name and rename the character so the manuscript sits on a shelf waiting.

In another book, I have the main character named Milan. Yep, she was conceived in Milan while her parents were on their honeymoon there. At least they didn’t honeymoon in Rhinebeck. Come to think of it, that is a fine name for a character. Excuse me while I add that to my list of possible character names.

Or how about a police detective named Tai? It’s not pronounced Tay, but rather Tie. That book is currently being assessed by a publisher. What will happen if they like the manuscript but hate the name? Will I be able to come up with a different name any time in the next decade? Perhaps I should start thinking of alternative names right now.

Symbolic Names

For a while, I named every bad person in my book be they serial killers, megalomaniacs, or cheating husbands, etc., etc., with the initials of my ex. I had a lot of fun doing that. I only hope my ex recognizes the characters for who they are. I finally got over that because it became very limiting trying to find names to fit the initials. This is a lesson for those of you who love a writer - never, ever piss off a writer because you will be immortalized in every book he or she writes.

I recently started a new book and the name that popped into my head for this character is Tango Redding. Why? Maybe because I bought a car and the color of the car is, you guessed it, “Tango Red.” Why couldn’t it have been Rose or Roseanne?

Mundane Names

These days, I’m trying to move away from both the exotic and symbolic names. In my current work in progress, I have a male character named Jackson. Uh, that’s his first name not his last. Maybe I haven’t moved as far away from the exotic as I thought especially considering the story is set in 1903-1907. Maybe, I’ll change his name. To what though is the question. Lawrence is mundane enough, I think.

Do you see what I mean about not being able to name these people? I considered calling him Jason then Cotton (after Cotton Mather), settled on Jackson and am now searching for another name. Maybe by the time I’ve written the rest of the book, he’ll have a name he can call his own. In the meantime, I wonder if Rhinebeck would work for him. It’s a nice strong masculine name. But what would his friends call him? Rhine sounds silly, but Beck might work. Hmmmm.

Keeping a List

This is precisely why I keep a list of possible names. When I come across an interesting name, I add it to the list. I also keep an app on my iPhone called “Baby Names,” which is always a good resource when I become stuck for a name.

Whisperings in My Ear

I find myself wondering what keeps myself and my fellow unpublished writers motivated to continue writing in the face of editors telling us that only the likes of another Stephen King is likely to get published these days or agents who email rejections almost immediately upon receiving our queries.

I read the tweets of writers who rejoice at getting 250 words written the day before while another has a goal of writing 1200 words that day and still another laments a sick child and still another is depressed about having to go to work rather than being able to stay home and write. What motivates these people?

Is it the sheer joy of being able to create a world? To see that world taking shape every time we open that document? Or perhaps it is the ability to create a character, a person really, perhaps one we’d like to be. Maybe it’s the relationship we’ve created that allows us to escape a loveless marriage or partnership for an hour or two each day as our fingers fly across the computer’s keyboard and the idealized man or woman says all the things we wish we could hear in our “real” lives.

Is it the joy of having our characters “talk” to us every day telling us what to say and how they feel? Is it listening to conversations in our heads whilst we are in the shower and hoping we can remember them after we get out of the shower and dressed? Or is it finally knowing how to end the book because our character whispered it in our ear while we were supposed to be listening to someone else while sitting in a classroom or meeting room?

Perhaps it is noticing for the first time how a friend cocks his head to one side as he listens to you telling him your woes of yet another rejection from an agent and knowing your protagonist would do the exact same thing. Or is it hearing for the first time the train whistle in the far distance as it makes it way to its destination as it does every day at the same time?

Maybe it’s how your best friend raises one eyebrow as she listens to you update your story for her. And then laughing when you ask her to teach you how to raise an eyebrow so you know how your character feels when he or she does it in your book.

It may be sitting in a coffee house listening to the couple at a nearby table quietly argue and you pull out the ever-present notebook that you carry for just such times so you can write down what they’re saying. Or those two women in the booth talking about how a friend is suffering in the hospital from terminal cancer.

There are many things, I think, that motivate us to keep writing. Some large, like a kind word or two from an agent, some not so large. It doesn’t take much to keep us writing. Perhaps like myself, my fellow writers are amazed that we can write, that we have these voices whispering inside our heads, and that some day we’ll all be published.