Hi, Jo here, tangled up in the calendar turnover! I turned it to November today, late of course, and there was my reminder to put up a Wench post. Many apologies.
So I'm doing a quickie.
Last week I realized that the hero of my MIP (Masterpiece, Mess, or Monster in progress) doesn't have a first name. This happens to me quite frequently with my titled heroes as lords often hardly used their baptismal name at all, even though as writers and readers of historical romance we like them to. In reality they used their title for most purposes.
Of course, most of them aren't born into their title. Let's take as example plain William Potts, who grows up as Billy until the age of fourteen, when his father becomes a viscount as the heir to an earl. Billy is suddenly the Honorable William Potts, but it probably doesn't make a great deal of difference to him as he's at school, where the boys are all called by their surnames. This pattern continues, and gentlemen tended -- still sometimes tend -- to address one another by surname.
(The picture is of the five ranks of peers in their robes.)
Then Billy's father becomes the earl and he becomes Viscount Creel, and Creel he remains for twenty years until at age fifty he become Earl of Dullock, known to most as Dullock. Not surprising really if some of them embraced a nickname in youth that their intimates used all their lives.
(As well as the vast oversupply of dukes in Prinnyworld - as I once tagged the world of Regency-set romance - there are a shocking number of titled men under thirty. Shocking, because we have to accept the sad fact that they'll all have to die before sixty to provide a new generation of young, sexy, adventurous peers!)
However, I probably should discover what the Earl of Kynaston's Christian name is. (I never did discover that of the Duke of Ithorne, hero of The Duke's Secret. Occasionally a particularly attentive reader writes to ask me and I have to tell her that I don't know. Clearly that was the secret! It must be a particularly dismaying one. Nero? Ethelbert?
Any suggestions as to a name that a romance hero would want to bury so deep that the author can never discover it?
Viscount Dauntry, the hero of my April book, would have liked to keep his secret, but the story includes the wedding, so they had to come out.
Back to Kynaston. I asked for suggestions on Facebook and I have an abundance of excellent ones, but I thought I'd ask here, too.
A few points, which are also general guides to naming an English aristocratic gentleman.
1. They rarely used Old Testament names such as Aaron, Samuel, or Gideon. These were used in the lower classes, but not in the aristocracy, perhaps because some were associated with the Puritans of the Commonwealth, who beheaded Charles I.
2. They rarely used Irish names. The Irish were not admired, so no Brendan, Patrick, or Sean.
3. Unless they had Scottish connections, they tended not to use Scottish names such as Ian, Gavin and Alistair. James was fine, as he'd become an English king.
4. They did use classical names to show off their education. Hector, Leander, Scipio.
5. They often played safe with New Testament names and those of monarchs -- John, William, Henry, and lots and lots of Georges (which is why I wrote the trilogy I tagged "three guys called George") but we'll ignore that.
Let me have your suggestions for Lord Kynaston's baptismal name. There'll be a book prize for one randomly picked suggestion.
Jo