What's Not In A Name?

Edith here.

I just finished revisions on a new book! Yes! It's out next December: HIS CONVENIENT BRIDE, Avon books.

It's a good un'!!

And my very next book  - out this very May 27th - is: HIS DARK AND DANGEROUS WAYS!

I has such fun with that.

But I'm now working on a new proposal. 
That means I have to come up with a whole batch of new names. 
Naming characters in a book is just as hard as naming babies, and just as chancy.

I've recently been gifted with two new grandsons.
Hugo on the east coast, and Sebastian on the west coast.
Their parents agonized over what names to give them, and did not consult me.  Or if they did, then they ignored whatever I said, which I forget now anyway. 
Hugo and Sebastian.
But you'd  think they'd listen to a person who has written over 30 books, wouldn't you?
So some of the names I proposed were way too historical.  So what?
Wouldn't you want a son named Attila?  You could nick-name him "Hun." 
sigh. 
Nobody listens to mothers anymore.

But the point is that I am mother to all my characters, from dashing dukes to evil villains, though villains can be named most anything... except perhaps for Snidely McWhiplash, or something give-away like that.

The hero of my new book: HIS DARK AND DANGEROUS WAYS is Simon Atwood, Lord Granger.  And our heroine is Jane Chatham.  The villain is.... you'll have to see for yourself!

Now I have to name all new characters.  Add to that the fact that I hate to re-use names, and what you have is a problem. 

I have six "Name your Baby" books sitting on my desk even as I write this.  I firmly believe that a name helps shape the character, in fiction and in life.

For example, if I'd been named "Elizabeth" as my mother told me I might have been, I'm convinced I'd have had more fun.  I could have been "Liz" or Lizzie" or "Liza."   Then I would have been able to sing torch songs while sitting on pianos, or have been a madcap, dancing in the Plaza fountain at Midnight with a slew of adoring, handsome playboys cheering me on.  What a life I would have led!

Edith writes books.  She doesn't even dance in the shower.  Even her dog doesn't cheer her on.

So I name my characters carefully.

A hero named "Oscar"?  Or "Lester"?  Or "Bruce"???  Not to mention "Alan" or "Barry"?

Perfectly nice names in real life, but not names to dream about in a literary heart breaker.  Especially a Historical one.

"Hugo" or "Sebastian"?  Too creepy to write love scenes with the hero bearing your grandson's name!  Besides, I already used them, long before the babies arrived.

Charles Dickens was the king of names.  He kept a notebook in which he jotted down names which struck him as odd or unusual.  He was a master.  Think "Ebenezer Scrooge."  The very name for a miser.  It leaves the lips in a sneer when you say it.  Brilliant! 

Contemporary writers have an easier time, I think.  And though I'm not comparing myself to him, Dickens was, after all, a contemporary writer.

Historical heroes and heroines have to sound like they fit in their era.  I was shocked - I tell you shocked!  when I discovered that the Great Georgette Heyer had a character named "Tiffany"!  Who'd a thunk it?  My editor would have me committed if I tried to slip a "Tiffany" into a novel set in the Regency era.  But Georgette done it!

Rhett and Scarlett were perfect names.  And who was the weakling?  "Ashley."  Works.  But only for that one book because the characters are so indelible.  And I don't take names from other books.

Take inspiration from the movies? 
Our current heroes have good names, but not thrilling ones.  There's Johnny (as in Depp) and Robert (as in Downey, Jr.) and Jude (as in Law).... Wait  That's a great name!  But "Sir Jude"?  uh uh.
It would be hard to write about lord Viggo too, wouldn't it?

Old movies?  I can't have Historical heroes with the same names of once adored hunky movie heroes such as: Rudolf (as in Valentino) and Tyrone (as in Power) and Farley (as in Granger - though "Lord Granger" is neat for a hero's title, as in HIS DARK AND DANGEROUS WAYS.  Too bad that Lord Farley and Sir Tyrone wouldn't work.)   

Names in Historical novels come in trends, just as names do in real life.  Recently, masculine names in Historical Romances and films and TV were all: "Rock" and "Wolf" and "Spike"...  hard names to show this guy is one tough testosterone filled character. 

But the trend is slowing.  I guess all the best name got used up, leaving nothing but "Sledge" and "Hammer" and "Philip's Screwdriver" yet to be used.
(Oops!  Forgot "Mike Hammer!"  There goes another one.) 
Some hard guy names are still thriving in real life.  I note with interest that there's an adorable toddler in my grandson's nursery school named "Stone."   

Still, times they are a'changing.

It's different for females, even in this era of "spirited women" and "feisty" heroines.  They don't have to have names to show they're not pushovers anymore.   Sweet "Mary" and shy "Violet" can kick butt with the best of them. That's the whole point of feminism.

So now, here I sit, looking for plausible heroes with great macho, but not stupido, names.

Got any suggestions?

****THE WINNER OF THE AUTOGRAPHED Edith Layton book is: liz !

That's what the impartial judge picked. That name really must have something gonig for it!

Please contact me at elaytonfel [at] aol.com with a good snail mail addy and it will be posted ASAP. :)

Comments

[Edith]

OOPS! Sebastian the Great may be found at
WWW.fanaticalapathy.com
He's so new he doesn't have hs own site yet!

[AgTigress]

The great Georgette made some mistakes, but 'Tiffany' was not one of them. The name, as a nickname for Theophania, is attested long before the early 19th century - back into the Middle Ages, though I don't know which century.
;-)

[liz]

My mother wanted her first granddaughter named Allegra. I had to decline. It's an allergy medication. But no, said my mother, it's ancient world and goddesses! It's on a small brown bottle in my cupboard, said I. And while I half expected her to call the baby Ally anyway, she adjusted.

I feel for my mom. She didn't get to name me either, but I'm grateful I'm liz and not Mercedes. I'd have made a terrible Mercedes.

[CJPrince]

I don't know this guy personally - but I've seen the name "Dylan Speed" on some company emails. That's a pretty cool name, although - we work in the floral industry.....

[Elaine McCarthy]

OK, my daughter is named Allegra and she's 32, so they named the allergy medicine AFTER her, and she's pretty ticked off about it, I can tell you!

Have you noticed the outlandish names the romantic writers of the Regency period sometimes gave their characters? Byron was particularly overblown in this respect. His daughters were named Elizabeth Medora, Augusta Ada and (!!) Allegra! "Medora" sounds like what I can remember of the names of his poetic heroines. I think he made them up!

Anne Radcliffe had heroines named Emily and Ellena and a maid by the name of Annette. There was a Laurentina in some book of that period, whom I recall chiefly from her being mentioned in Northanger Abbey. Walpole's The Castle of Otronto had Manfred and Conrad, Hippolita and Isabella.

If you go by Jane Austen, though, you'd think there were only about six women's names in the whole of England!

[liz]

Elaine - I feel your daughter's pain. But I thank her for the clear breathing.

It seems to run in families, the Byron/Austen thing - on some of my family lines they reuse the same names so often that the children must have been known by nicknames only - how could one keep eight the same age straight otherwise? And then on others it's each name more unexpected than the next. Bathsheba looking downright tame. Mordecai being predictable.

The not-named Allegra had a number of narrow escapes. Her father wanted to name her Xtra Cheez. I pointed out that was obviously a boy's name.

[Susan/DC]

My husband had 3 rules about baby names: he had to have heard of it before, he had to know how to spell it, and he had to know what gender it was. He clearly didn't allow any of the currently popular, androgynous names (Madison, Brooklyn, etc). I, on the other hand, having grown up among a plethora of Susans (in my 8th grade class of eight girls, 3 of us were Susan), wanted something a bit more out of the way. I do like Sebastian, although none of my boys wound up with it.

And yes, names do seem to make a difference. Ediths and Susans don't sit on pianos, while the Michelle Pfeiffer's get to drape themselves over pianos right and left.

[Cristina XOXO]

+IHS+

I remember getting to Chapter II of a category Romance and learning that the hero's name was John Smith.

It all went downhill from there.

Now that I'm trying to be generous, I think the author was trying to make a point about how he was a "regular guy" and not some larger-than-life character . . . but it felt like a huge cop out to me! (Especially when the heroine's first name was, if I remember correctly, Pepper!)

[LizA]

I really really hate to be a spoilsport, but being called Liz does not mean that I can play the piano, and those madcap piazza things - nope. I guess it has to go together with certain italian surnames. Alas for my completely german one!
Seriously, names are important. A lot of it is personal, of course; if you know a totally stupid Annette, you might be disinclined to name your creations (be they children or characters) after them. But there are also literary associations. Who doesn't think of Lizzie Bennett when a heroine is named Lizzie?
Here in Austria, a name has to be a personal name (so Ketchup and Nokia are out - and yes, there were parents who tried!), and it has to be gender-specific. Narrows it down some....

[LizA]

Note on the side: Apparently Demeter and Arthemis were quite popular as names for MEN in the 19th century. I wonder how those goddesses ended up on the other side? And wouldn't a hero called Demeter O'Malley be fun? Not???

[Gretchen F]

Certain names would not seem to be good for heroes- for instance Waldo and Percy- but then along comes Sir Percy Blakeney, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Sir Waldo Hawkridge, The Nonesuch, and those names sound a lot better! I think Jo's three Georges with separate nicknames was great- call your hero something historically accurate and then give him a nickname based on some daring exploit...
We teachers see a lot of folly in the naming of children- I will never forget a child whose misguided parents, in an effort to be cute, had named her Pebbles, after the Flintstones cartoon character. I wonder if she grew up to be a serial killer...;)
I think you can't go wrong using the name of a king or a saint. Your hero can either be pious or patriotic..

[Maggie Robinson]

Not only was my mother named Margaret, but my paternal grandmother and about a zillion other women on both sides of the family.When it came to nicknames, I couldn't be Peggy because that was the name of my father's former fiancee! I did not inflict Margaret on any of my three daughters, but they all have family names (Sarah, Jessie and Abigail). Edith, you've probably used all the good names already, but go on and steal from yourself with one of your early books!

My favorite hero names are Nicholas and Dominic.

[AgTigress]

Remember that personal names follow different patterns, not only in different eras, but in different cultures. The important thing is that the name be appropriate for the setting. I think that then, even if the actual name is a non-favourite of the reader, if the character is well-drawn and attractive, she will unconsciously adjust her response to the name.

In other words, I think it works the other way round - not 'name establishes character', but 'character establishes name'. I dislike the name 'Eric', for instance, but if a good book included an attractive hero named Eric, I could cope - just as I can cope with real men named Eric if they are pleasant. It is just the NAME I dislike, not necessarily all holders thereof.

There is no way that an author can hope to come up with names that all readers, of different backgrounds and ages and cultures, will like, so I think she must just follow her own choices.

[piper]

A rose by any other name....

I personally can't stand the name George, I have found so many to be idiots. I know this isn't universal, but sadly my experience with Georges hasn't been good. In any event, I can think of many traditional names that sound manly, and heroic - Timothy, Thomas, Edward, Robert, Richard, James,Charles, Roman, (that might be more ethnic though- I know men of German descent given this name). I'm sure you've used a lot of them, but maybe if you give them a different last name, the first name is not so critical.

My parents tried to give their children unpopular names, and seemed to have some success, although my sister Karen probably ended up with the most common of the names. I first came across someone with the same name as me (Christine) in high school, and only a couple of times since then. I however hated my name and wanted to be Debbie or Linda (ack! What was I thinking?) In any event, am happy with my name now. In relation to nicknames in High School a friend phoned up and asked to speak to Chris. My brother had no idea who they were wanting. My name was never shortened at home, and initially when people did shorten it, I had no idea to whom they were talking .

[talpianna]

Popular names in the Regency were classical deities (Minerva, Flora, Diana), Shakespearean heroines (Juliet, Rosalind, Celia), and Biblical names, mainly New Testament. I know of at least one Regency author (not Heyer, but she may have done it, too) who made the mistake of naming a heroine "Cressida." It's Shakespearean, all right; but the character had come to be synonymous with treachery and infidelity, so it was like naming a character "Jezebel" or "Judas."

I have somewhere a very useful HISTORICAL dictionary of names, which tells you what names would have been in use in what century in a particular country. And if you really want to use a particular name, you can always make up an excuse. I have one romance from the 1960s in which the heroine, a country vicar's daughter, I think, was named "Yasmin"--because that was the name of the heroine of a book her mother was reading at the time.

[talpianna]

Tigress: behindthename.com has this on "Tiffany":

Medieval form of THEOPHANIA. This name was traditionally given to girls born on the Epiphany (January 6), the festival commemorating the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus.

[AgTigress]

Mole: I know.

[Virginia]

Very useful for pre-Regency historicals:

Scott Smith-Bannister, Names and Naming Patterns in England 1538-1700 (Oxford Historical Monographs 1997).

Also, on http://www.rootsweb.com, if you go to the WorldConnect Project, throw in just any name to get into the system. Then go to the search feature at the bottom, take the proper name out, and put in the location that interest you and the date that interests you.

For example, "Wiltshire" for the birthplace and 1800 +/- 20 years for the date.

It will bring up a list of everybody that's been entered for the time and place with their names.

It works for non-British locations also, so you can get names for French characters, German characters, etc.

The main hazard is that for the medieval era, people have entered the same family lines over and over again, so sometimes you will get three dozen listings for the same monarch.

[theo]

Well, I'd certainly rather be a Liz than Theo! I am all woman and very happy with my gender and yet, (this is really going to date me) received a draft notice to Mr. Theo *insertlastnamehere* *sigh* And I still get stuff addressed to Mr. or, when I have to call my cell phone company it takes five minutes to convince them I am ME!! Top that off with the fact that my Aunt, who had terrible writing, filled out my birth certificate and managed to change my middle name (which is also hers) from a fairly straightforward name to being named after a stripper....

It's been hard going...and took me until the last ten years to appreciate the uniqueness of my name rather than hate the oddity of it. *sigh again*

:D

[Carol]

Hi, I remember Tyrone Power in The Razors Edge, I loved him...I was about 14, I recently downloaded a great photo of him from google...What a guy!

I found in a my family search history a lady called ... "Experience Lanphere" b.1709
Gosh there would have to be a story about that name!
Cheers

[Edith]

>> Ediths and Susans don't sit on pianos, >>

Right, Susan, they don't.
But "Susie" and "Edie" do.
My very own Susie is a piano sitter, and sings like an angel while she's at it, when she's not dancing, that is.
She says the only time I call her "Susan" is when I'm mad at her.
I was an "Edie" when I was tiny.
But nevermore since.
:-(

[Edith]

You guys are so erudite!
Your comments and research impresses me to bits.
All I can add is that I once had an uncle named "Ruby" and have a cousin named "Cozy."
The gem changed his name when he grew up. Cozy loves hers and so does everyone else.
We live in liberal times!

[Patricia Rice]

LOL, I'm loving this conversation! I was just jotting notes for my blog--which is also about the stage of my current proposal--and stopped in to this perfect madness. I've just blithely called a secondary character Lord Randall, and I have a sneaking suspicion he'll show up as a hero in his own book, so I'd better fix that quick or he'll be Lord Randy forever!

As one of the ubiquitous Patricias of my time period, I appreciate unique names. I'd have loved Theo!

[LizA]

Hi Piper! Christine is a very common name in Austria and Germany. My mom was nearly named thus, but her cousin was born a few days earlier and her parents snatched the name, so my poor mum ended up as Waltraud - even though it's not the worst of German names, it is certainly not particularly nice either. Most of my Christine friends use Tina or Tine as a short form though.

Roman is indeed the german version of a fairly popular latin name. could also be russina, though! There are different versions in most European languages but I do not think there is an English one. Not a bad name, anyway! The hero could always have a German mother or godfahter!

[theo]

Thanks, Pat! :D Though it's a very tough name to grow up with. Like I said, it's just been the past ten years or so I've learned to appreciate it. After all, it's not like I'll be standing in a crowd and if someone calls my name, thirty people look up in answer. Maybe questioning... :P

And what's wrong with a hero known as Lord Randy?? Man could I make a story out of THAT one!! :)

theo

[theo]

And maybe I owe you an apology now that I read my post. I think I should have called you Patricia.

Sorry!

theo

[Kalen Hughes]

Oh man . . . my parents (Stephen and Cheryl) had an Irish kick with my sibs: "Siobhan" and "Niall". I guess they aren't at all strange if you live in a Gaelic speaking country (we don’t) . . . but Siobhan did manage to find herself a theme song (by The Tossers) and I've seen more than one Niall lurking within the pages of a romance novel (yes, it always squicks me out; I now check all Scottish historicals for the hero’s name before purchasing!).

The names that kill me are ones like “Pilot Inspektor” (Jason Lee’s son) and “Moxie Crimefighter” (Penn Jillette's daughter), and OH THE HORROR: “Kryptonian superspawn Kal-el” (Nicolas Cage’s son!).

But with the Georgian obsession for all things classical, I think it’s kind of fun to come up with crazy names for my characters. I went with normal ones for my first series, but the one I’m in the early stages of plotting now is going to go in another direction (yes, tip of the hat to Mary Balogh).

[theo]

Um...Moon Unit Zappa comes to mind. Of course again, that's dating me here! lol And her brother Dweezil... *sigh* Then again, you have Gwyneth Paltrow and her daughter, Apple. No wonder I love romance novels. They're much more realistic and down to earth! ;)

theo

[talpianna]

There's always the classic "Eadie Was a Lady," a hit for Cab Calloway and for Ethel Merman. There's a version of the latter on YouTube, but I can't check it out because my computer's sound died.

[Zeba]

Naturally I think your children have marvellous taste. My older boy is called Sebastian and my younger is Hugo ;-)