Names, Names, Names

Sunday, July 26th, 2009 | Posted by: Andrew Kent

I recently attended a book club to discuss my novel. It was a fun session, with a lot of good questions, and I enjoyed myself a great deal. I especially liked it toward the end, when some participants felt the time dwindling yet had things to say. It really became a bit of a riot, showing that I’d sparked their imaginations and gotten them involved in the story. It was pretty awesome.

One of the lines of questioning was about the names of the characters in my first novel — Johnny Denovo, Mona Landau, Tucker Thiesen, and Jim and Justine Winthrop, just to name a few. Where did these names come from? Were they inspired by anybody in particular?

That’s what people really wanted to know. They wanted the dirt, the inside story, the secret crush, the unsavory motive.

Too bad I pick my names for other reasons.

I’ve always admired people who can peg a character’s name. It requires real thought and a delicate touch. One name I like these days is Jack Reacher. I don’t necessarily like the books, but the name is pretty great, sounding like “creature” when you read through it.

My main character’s name came from the scientific term for “from the beginning” or “anew” — de novo. I work in medical publishing, so I’d seen the term enough in both my editorial days and, more recently, in my publishing days. I liked it. It scanned. And it’s a legitimate last name with some meaning.

I wanted my series to be a little tongue-in-cheek, so what better name than “Johnny” for that feel? OK, protagonist set. Now, to the rest of the cast.

Mona Landau is Johnny’s strong-willed agent and love interest, the only woman who can get under his skin. Initially, her name was Becky. So wrong. So, so wrong. But I needed something — a stand-in, like “scrambled eggs” was for Paul McCartney while he wrote “Yesterday” — something to use while the scenes were flowing, something I’d attack later. Becky it was. But the character was too strong and sophisticated for that name, too sinuous, sensual — hot like lava. I needed a name that flowed, that filled your mouth, that you finished with a tingle. Well, Mona Lisa is a legendary beauty. Let’s start there. The rest was just finding something that sounded right, something that felt like you could say it while talking with a mouthful of ice cream.

Tucker? A classic buddy name, with the twist of Thiesen at the end, something vaguely European, possibly German, more sophisticated than his first name, belying that all is not as simple as it seems with this guy.

Now, working on the second book, I’ve come to a new naming place — I’ve found a character whose ideal name is a real person’s name, a person I know. I want to use it, but I need this person’s permission. If I don’t get permission, it’s back to the drawing board for that character. It’s that important, that integral to the character’s “feel” in the narrative.

I think names should scan easily. Readers shouldn’t stumble over them, struggle with them like the names in a Russian novel. They should slide through them just as easily as regular words, but have something — an impression, a memory, an association — stick, a feeling that they’ll have each time they see the name, a reminder of the character.

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but call it “mutton,” and I don’t think it would be the flower of romance. A dozen muttons just doesn’t sound right.