Episode #241: Hello! And You Are...?

This is one of my newer little friends that my muse was kind enough to introduce me to, as apparently I now need someone to keep me properly motivated with my writing. I think she's trying to tell me something.

A few weeks ago, I had participated in a small conversational thread, on a favorite YouTube channel that I subscribe to, about old fashioned names {the Reddit story in question was about the poster's sister mocking him for naming his child 'Lyric', and the sister was enamored with old/classic names}. The conversation thread got me to thinking about old fashioned names in general and how they're used in today's world.

I wasn't a big fan of the old fashioned names early on, mostly due to the only exposure that I had to them was like everyone else: Hollywood {period t.v. shows, period movies and cartoons} and books. It wasn't until I had started my first state government job back in 1996, helping microfilm old CT newspapers, that I had decided to take a more serious interest in what we now consider to be old-fashioned/classic names.

Fast forward to roughly 15 years ago, when I decided to get serious about my writing. One of the first items on my list to tackle was how to properly name my characters, both male and female, so that the names would more accurately reflect the type of person I was writing them to be. Which basically meant that I didn't want to either use short versions of popular names {e.g. John, Kate, Chuck} or popular American English names {e.g. Matthew, Mel, Rich}. So this left me using other sources to come up with interesting first names that would accurately reflect the character I'm creating.

The road to interesting names is paved with pop culture, history, foreign languages and the Internet. To whit:

1} Pop culture: drawing on this particular item required me to search the memories of my life, specifically the world of Warner Brother cartoons, where all kinds of interesting names were used, abused and mocked. This went hand in hand with point #2.

2} History: I spent 1996 thru 2003 working with late 18th thru early 20th century newspapers, so this gave me a surprisingly in-depth education on the societal norms and habits of those eras, of which one was the first names of men and women. Almost to a fault, the full proper version of a name was used publicly, which I was eventually able to turn on its head once I had gotten serious about my writing.

3} Foreign languages: this basically worked hand-in-hand with the Internet, since a lot of the names I was brainstorming sounded way cooler after they were run through a foreign language {e.g. Spanish, Italian}. This led directly to #4.

4} The Internet: since going to the library nowadays, while a good place to do research, was not conducive to the almost ADHD style of research that I would typically undertake when writing a story {focus? what's that?}. Thus, the Internet was a very key tool when it came to researching character names, especially when I was struck with a whim of "hey, I wonder what this would sound like in French or what's the equivalent in Norse mythology?" {note, those were actual search terms used by me}.

So, armed with this vast not-quite-encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture/history, off I went in search of using names that were slightly different from the contemporaries but fit quite snugly in a given story. Let me give you three examples where I've successfully applied this philosophy.

A} My current novella, The Mortality of Familial Love, features an eclectic mix of character names that were chosen from all of the aforementioned points. Three of the main character names were Dmitri, Charles and Kaitlyn, while a few secondary characters had names of Amaliya, Andrik and Niles.

So I'm a big fan of using Slavic/Russian names for both good/bad/amoral characters; using alternate spellings of traditional names and using names directly inspired from t.v. shows. I'm also a major fan of using traditional names in general for some of my stronger characters, no matter where they fall on that tri-scale of good/bad/amoral.

B} Novella with a potential publishing date of 2025. This one I went a little hog wild by using all the aforementioned points, with the names falling under the entire tri-scale of good/bad/amoral. I did use a nickname or two, along with an alternative spelling for a few others. I will note that some of the following names were recycled for example C, because there are times where selective recycling of names is a good thing.

Names that I had chosen were: Jon, Alexia, Bradley (trad no nickname), Terrance (trad no nickname), Freddy/Frederick, Melvin, Claire, Virgil, and Xandra.

Again, the bulk of the names chosen were mostly old traditional names, which actually fit with the basic plotline that centers around two local criminal organizations that were vying for dominance in their home state. To me, using traditional names, no matter the gender, signifies respect, albeit 18th & 19th century style of respect, where nicknames were not really used.

C} My current lo-fantasy project. This is where I really went feral hog wild with choosing my character names, in which I had applied everything from the original four points plus others like different spellings.

I won't go into redundant detail on the names that I had actually chosen, as those could be found in this particular post from the Spring, but I will go into some of the background as to where they had originated from.

I originally wanted to say that at least five of the original character names were brought over to the new series, but after giving it some thought, only two and a half were brought over: Jhon and Adeola, with Myla's alternate name of Alicia being brought over. Everything else was created from scratch using sources as diverse as: Greek mythology; real life; a reader's poll; Spanish and Italian translation; very traditional names, with source material alternating between WB cartoons/old newspapers/classic television from the 70's/period history. We then detoured to classic literature, 19th century Europe and modern life. 

In short, we tried to select names that closely mirrored the kind of character we had in mind to create. I think the biggest mistake one can make as a writer is to choose names that are the proverbial square peg to the character's proverbial round hole. For me, it's something that I can picture quite clearly in my mind that this character needs this particular type of name attached to them.

Over the years it's been a hard struggle to choose names for my characters, and even a harder struggle not to reuse a particular name as a lead character no more than three times in consecutive stories. But I am trying my very best with my selection of names for my lead characters, whether they're male or female.

Within the next few weeks, look for a post where I talk about how I choose names for characters that are either throwaways or hang around long enough to advance a given story arc.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved