Monday, July 28, 2014

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

What’s in a name? So much I hardly know where to begin. I have to admit, first off, that I come up short if I count on my own fertile imagination: John, Mary, Smith, Jones…I tend to blank out. Early on, someone recommended the phone book, but that’s too many choices. I was paralyzed after reading a whole page looking for a perfect name to steal. There are online name sites that can be fun and they are particularly good if you’re searching for popular names in a given year or decade (very few Ednas in 1991, but America was drowning in Ashleys that year) or foreign names, as I have been doing for my story set in France.

I like names that give off a whiff of the character, but didn’t realize how close I’d come in my first book with “Winship (Win) Thorne” until one of my sons, both of whom far surpass me in linguistic skills, pointed out that the man with the dark drive to score big and the prickly personality was well named.



Have you noticed what I realized after bonding with my series protagonist, Danielle O’Rourke, usually known as Dani, that many female protagonists have gender-ambiguous names? Georgie, Kinsey, Jerri, Munch…could go on, but I think the underlying and perhaps unconscious aim is to avoid rendering them too stereotypically soft to deal with murderers while allowing their voices to remain female.

Sometimes, I’ll be well into a manuscript when I notice the character name doesn’t fit the personality that’s emerging. I thank the writing gods for the Search and Replace function when that happens, when the character turns out not to be a charming Robby but a manipulative Leroy.* It's odd how much the wrong name gets me off balance. Sometimes I'm not even sure what's slowing me down until I type it for the hundredth time and suddenly realize I can't see this character - he or she has become opaque to me. And I had an annoying experience recently when the perfectly named character had to have her name changed. It was Cherry, which someone pointed out was too much like cherie, the French term of endearment everyone in scenes she's in tosses around. Oh, rats. 

 What's in a name? Everything.


*For all the non-manipulative Leroys out there, this is where I assure you that responses to names are subjective, fickle, and say more about the person having the response than the named subject.

8 comments:

Paul D. Marks said...

Susan, you're right on when you say how the wrong name can get you off balance. Just like everything else in the story the name has to be the perfect fit, otherwise something just doesn't seem quite right.

Catriona McPherson said...

Very true, Susan. (And I join you in cheering for Global Replace.) It's odd, isn't it, because in real life people have "wrong" names all the time. Jennifer Lopez should be something much more glam.

Meredith Cole said...

Yes, find and replace has saved me many a time! Mostly when I find out that I have somehow given everyone in my story a name that starts with the same letter or names that all rhyme.. Great post, Susan.

Susan C Shea said...

Glad I'm not the only one who needs to change names mid-novel! Meredith, that is so true: Why did I think everyone in my novel had to have last names that started with M?!

RJ Harlick said...

I'm right there with you in changing names in mid-novel, sometimes even after I've completed the first draft. And yup, global replace works, but sometimes it doesn't catch all of instances and I've found myself suddenly being faced with the original name while I'm going through the proofs.....

Terry Shames said...

Global replace is fine....mostly. But if you replace a name like Bud with a name like Joan, you'll get some brand new words in your manuscript, like "she was a Joanding artist" or "don't go over your Joanget".


Susan C Shea said...

Terry, you have to add a space before and after the new name, I found!

Robin Spano said...

Oh that is an excellent disclaimer. I see Leroy as scrappy, maybe disadvantaged, and charming.