What’s in a name?

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

A famous line from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. If a rose were to be called a turnip instead, it would still have all the properties of the same flower; beautiful scent, silky petals, vibrant colours. We would come to associate the word ‘turnip’ with meaning all of these things. Basically, it doesn’t matter what we call something, it’s still the same thing.

This works for people. Names can be changed and the person is still the same person. I once knew a girl who’s real name was, I think, Jane. However, from a very young age she was called Daisy by all who knew her and never could imagine calling her Jane. However, if I had she would have been the same person, although perhaps my perception of her would have changed.

So a person stays the same, but people’s thoughts and feelings towards different names can effect how  that person is viewed. An example is Katie Price/Jordan, who is the same person by either name, but clearly felt that being a topless model wasn’t suited to someone with as friendly and pretty a name as Katie. Another example is the new Prince George. A friend and I were joking in the pub the other night that he was nearly called Wayne or Kevin – clearly those names were never going to happen, but why did it feel so funny to think our future monarch could have been King Wayne I? Connotations with the name Wayne give people a pre-conceived idea about what that person is going to be like. People’s perceptions of names undoubtedly affected the royal couple’s choice when naming their son. Which is a shame; they could have broken with tradition and made Wayne the most popular name this decade.

All of this affects how a writer names their book characters. Well-used names, whether in real life or fiction, are to be avoided in my opinion. People have well-formed ideas of certain names and to use those in your manuscript either takes guts or stupidity.

I once ended up at the launch of a new book by chance, as it was happening on the same night as a winter fair and someone pressed a flyer into my hands. Never one to say no to a book launch, I went along with a couple of friends and we had a free glass of mulled wine and looked at the book. Turning it over to read the back, the first thing that I noticed was that the main character was called Tom Cruise (possibly with a different spelling, but I can’t remember now). The blurb made light of it, glancing over the fact that this self-published author had chosen a name of one of the most famous Hollywood stars. I admit, it made me put the book down and walk away. Perhaps the book dealt well with how someone else would live sharing the name of someone so famous, but if that’s what the book was about, I didn’t want to read it. I think it’s more likely the author thought ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if my main character was called Tom Cruise but was nothing like him?’ and didn’t stop to think that all the readers out there would have had the Hollywood star’s face in their minds the whole time.

Another example was in a chick-lit book, where there was a minor character called Sue Sylvester. For those of you who don’t know, in the TV programme Glee there is a character with the same name. Now, it’s possible the author thought of the name before Glee started. But don’t you think they would have changed the name before the book was published? Again, it was made light of, the main character speaking to Sue on the phone and imagining she looked like the Glee character, only to have Sue turn up and look nothing like the woman from the television. What was the point?

So copying names can jolt you out of the narrative and make the reader uncomfortable. Likewise unpronounceable names. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been reading a book and suddenly you feel like you’re back at school, sounding out some multi-syllable name and stumbling every time. My technique when this happens is to quickly come up with a vague likeness that I can remember and, instead of torturing myself each time the name comes up, simply substitute the unpronounceable with my own, easier version. Perhaps not what the author intended, but then why choose something no-one can pronounce?

Fantasy names can be relatively easy. They can be completely made up and readers will simply accept the new names, because you’re writing about another time/place/dimension. The names in JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are an excellent example. His groups of names for different species gets across some of the qualities of each species while being unique names that the reader easily takes on board. The wizards, Gandalf and Saruman, have grand-sounding names with hard syllables. The elves have names that echo the names of stars and plants and sound generally mystical; Elrond, Arwen, Galadriel, Celeborn. Dwarves have quite percussive-sounding names with one or two syllables, that put me in mind of rocks; Gimli, Balin, Dori, Dwalin, Gloin. And finally, my favourite – the hobbit names. These are names that, for me, embody michievousness, fun and laughter; Bilbo Baggins, Frodo, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrine Took and (my absolute favourite) Meriadoc Brandybuck. Only two names from Tolkien have I ever seen in the real world – Arwen and Éowyn – and these are almost certainly copied from his books and not the other way around.

Where is all this musing on names going? Well, I am in the process of working on my next venture and I am struggling with a name for a character. The book is set near the year 3000 and I have already chosen most names, based on people I know or just names that came to my head and sounded right, but all have a futuristic “twist”. However, there is a character who doesn’t fit with the others, as he comes from what we know as Europe. So his name needs to sound a little different from the others, still have a root in a present-day name but not be one that is obviously “bad”. You can view the suggestions and make your own on my Facebook page or on Twitter use #helpingsuziwithnames.

Yes, a rose called something else would be the same flower. But somehow exactly the right name was chosen and our perceptions have been formed. And that’s what needs to happen for a writer.