Ras: Much in a Name

“In a novel names are never neutral. They always signify, if it is only ordinariness.” David Lodge, The Art of Fiction

Bridget Jones, Spenser, James Bond, Mrs. Robinson, Holly Golightly, Morris Bober, Augie March, Holden Caulfield, Nancy Drew, Flem Snopes, Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanan, Jake Barnes, Molly Bloom, Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Billy Budd, Bartleby, Esther Summerson, Uriah Heep, David Copperfield, Mr. Micawber, Peggotty, Mr. Dick, Becky Sharp, Mr. Knightley, Elizabeth Bennett, Charles Darcy, Sancho Panza. I could go on. The list of indelible characters in great works of fiction is nearly endless, and different readers will instantly think of different names.

The characters listed here do have something in common, though. Their names fit, and very nicely indeed. Admittedly, there’s a certain circularity in my argument. It’s hard to say whether Jake Barnes seems so right for the character because we’re exceedingly familiar with the great novel in which he appears, The Sun Also Rises, or whether the name Jake Barnes is a small but crucial element in the interwoven artistry of a great novel.

Let’s break that name down a little. Jake…Barnes – two one-syllable names, short and to the point, no BS to this guy, solid Midwest American type with Anglo-Saxon or maybe Scots-Irish roots, definitely a stoic, tight-lipped sort of guy, clearly a manly fellow. Jake Barnes – hmm, sounds kind of like Mark Twain. Namewise, Jake is the opposite of Ernest Hemingway, a multisyllabic, high-toned English aristocrat of a name that could be suitable for a major author. There’s a reason, then, that Jake Barnes is Jake Barnes and not Percy Coddington or Nigel Smedly-Aston.

What we’re looking for in a well-named character is something that just sounds right and suggests, mostly on a subliminal level, the essence of the character. Consider the aptly eclept Uriah Heep. Think of the words in the English language that sound like Uriah and the connotations of the word “heap” in English. Uriah Heep – yes, just right for the oily, obsequious, two-faced brown-noser in Charles Dickens’s novel David Copperfield. Just saying it almost makes you shudder. Such a fine name that a 1970s Brit rock group will adopt it and bring it a second round of fame.

Warning: it’s easy to go too far with a name and be overly suggestive. Dickens, a truly great namer, hits the mark with the bumbling, kind-hearted Mr. Dick, and Peggotty, the loyal nurse, in David Copperfield, but takes it over the top with David’s brutal stepfather Mr. Murdstone. Mr Murdstone belongs in a different kind of novel. Perhaps he wandered in from The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, in which characters like Christian and his buddy Hopeful encounter Mr. Wordly Wisdom and the Giant Despair on their way to the Celestial City. Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory that was enormously popular for several centuries after its publication in 1678, but these kinds of tell-all names have not been able to fly since Joyce, Proust, and Virginia Woolf appeared in the early 20th century and took psychological realism in the novel to new levels. A good name, in short, is a delicate balance between the suggestive and the memorable.

How is a writer to come up with good names? It helps to have a pretty good handle on the character before you try to tag her with a name. It also helps to become attuned to what I’ve got listed in my journal as “Nice Actual Names.” These are the names of real people lifted over the years from anywhere I can find them, but mostly out of newspapers. Obits are an excellent source. Here are a few Nice Actual Names I’ve been treasuring:

Skunny McCusker – bar owner in East Baltimore
Mynette Bueanaflor – State Department employee in the Philippines
Dartanion Lesane – football player in the Washington, DC, title game
Ogden Codman Jr. – architect who designed Rockefeller’s Kykuit retreat on Hudson
Eldorado Mills – DC police officer caught running a prostitution ring

Harriet Quimby – first woman to get a pilot’s license

Thacher Longstreth – Philadelphia councilman

One might say all of these have flair, or, possibly, that they verge on being over the top. My point is not that I’ll use these exact names in fiction, but that collecting and contemplating them – twirling them around in my subconscious – will stimulate my brain to come up good names for characters in fiction when the need arises.

Some years back I worked on a screenplay in which my collaborator and I had to name some denizens of a homeless shelter. It’s a list I like: Skeffie, Dupree, Mr. Tingley, Miz Jackson, a young boy named Wesley, the kitchen help Redtop and Vonetta, and the guy who runs the place, Tyrell. None of the names came straight from real life, but all derived in some sense from the Nice Actual Name lists. This screenplay also needs two Russian hoods, one named Valepukin (a derivation from an NHL player) and another named Temirnakov, perhaps suggested by the great Russian symphony conductor Yuri Temirkanov. There’s a right-wing survivalist/author/gun nut on the loose as well. His name is Armistead Flock. Who knows where that one came from?

So who are your favorite characters in fiction? And how much of their appeal is right there in the name?