“When I’m designing a character, I begin with a name. To my way of thinking, it’s impossible to create a character without one. The name I choose cannot be arbitrary, either. It’s the first of the tools that I can use in revealing who and what my creation is, and silly is the writer who fails to recognize this and just slaps any old name on a character without realizing that name’s import to the reader. Names can suggest just about anything to the reader. … traits of personality … social and ethnic background … geography … attitude, or even events that are yet to happen in the story. Names influence how a reader will feel about a character. They also make it easier for the writer to create a character.”
— Elizabeth George, American crime novelist, in Write Away!
“Names generate meaning in a short amount of space—they provoke thoughts, questions. That’s something I like doing. Of course, you have to be careful. Sometimes it can alienate the reader, it can be another level of mediation, to make a character carry the great burden of a metaphoric name. The character can be a device before he or she becomes a person, and that can be a bad thing for a writer who wants to offer up a kind of emotional proximity in the work. It’s a constant struggle, the desire to be playful and the desire to communicate on some very stark emotional level.”
“Show me a man or woman entirely happy with his or her name and I’ll show you a somehow defective human being.”
I’m working on a new novel, and discovering the characters’ names is always interesting. Our names shape us, and many of us have love-hate relationships with them. Some of us change names during our lives, changing how we view ourselves. More than once, I’ve written an entire draft, then changed a character’s name, for various reasons, and seen that character suddenly come alive when given the right handle. So, for April, a few quotes on naming.