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01-Oct-2007

The Name Game 1

Names are a real challenge for a writer. Get the name of a character wrong, and you risk losing your reader quick smart. The ex-Gulf War veteran with a drinking problem, a broken family and a debt of honour he can only repay by selling his services to a mercenary army in Africa and his name is Egbert Cuthbertson? I don't think so.

For me, I know a great deal about a character before I get around to naming him/her. When it comes time, I write his/her name down and say it out loud. If it clicks, if it works (highly objective, this) then I'm home and hosed. If it doesn't, I cross it out and try again. And again. And again until I get it.

Dickens loved his emblematic names, but trying that today runs the risk of having your novel sound like a parable or a fable. 'Mr Runcorn Grimblish was the junior clerk in the esteemed law firm of Hornblush, Tricksy and Gellinglass, and his sole talent was his exceedingly fine hand.'

Writing fantasy has an extra challenge. Making up names sounds great (hey, I can do whatever I like!) but many fantasy writers seem to forget that - above all - a name must be able to be pronounced. T'kj'rrraggnag might look cool on the printed page, but imagine the introductions: 'Hod the Lame, this is ... How did that go again? Don't get offended. Please don't get offended. Really, put the sword back in the scabbard. Please.'

Short names have some attraction for your main character. After all, you're going to be typing/writing that name an awful lot, so the fewer letters the better, RSI being what it is.

Sometimes I wish all my characters could have a name that's noble, characterful, easy to say and full of charm, wit and insouciance, but Michael is already taken.

Comments

I am a big reader of both adults and kids fantasy books. It's funny as sometimes with the more strange names you get in your head on how you would say it but when you talk to friends who have also read it they have interpreted and say the the name completely differently!


One of my favourite names from a fantasy novel is 'Strider' from Lord of the Rings.


Over the top Dickensian type names can still work really well: witness JK Rowling's menagerie! I think for them to succeed you need to create a really vivid world in which they just seem normal..
I love making up characters'names and really think about them--i must say I use cues and clues from myths and fairytales a lot. That and of course names I hear around me, things I glimpse in the papers, names on the spines of books, bits out of dictionaries, songs..anything, everything!


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