Naming your characters is like naming your children, except for one big difference: your children are already real, and will remain so, regardless of their names. Your characters are not real, and since your task is to make it seem otherwise, unlikely or inappropriate names can literally keep them from coming to life.
Imagine, for example, a tough cop, corrupt, mean, a killer himself. Would you name him Percy? Blaise? Leslie? If you did, you would be hurting your cause.
Writers sometimes err in the other direction. Would it help matters, for instance, to name the cop Thad Slasher? Leon Butkickowitz? Chuck Smothers? Brad Butcher? Probably not.
What to do? As in so many areas of life and art, the middle way is most productive. Find an appropriately masculine name for your cop–perhaps with just a shade of swagger or macho to it–and let it go at that. The principle is this: names should support your effort, but not distract the reader.
The reader’s focus should never be pulled away from the story itself. Anything in your character names that draws attention to the naming process (which is outside the story) should be rethought.
Here are some naming issues you should be ready for…
• Too much similarity. Early in a story, names become essential labels readers use to keep track of the players. Pairs of friends named, Tom and Tim, Peg and Meg, Benny and Harry, James and Jonas, etc. should be avoided. Readers tend to blur them, sometimes to the point where they have to reread to get things straight.
• Unintended references. A client of mine named two male friends Ben and Jeremy. It was too close to Ben and Jerry. To her credit, she caught it herself. In a published novel of mine, I called a slobby nightclub owner Mike Porco. A reviewer pointed out that there was a real Mike Porco–a beloved figure who managed Gerde’s Folk City in New York. I’m sure I had known that at one time and forgotten it. I felt terrible about it and got the name changed in the paperback editions.
•• Gender ambiguous names. Sometimes it’s impossible to tell the gender of a character introduced as Reese, or Boyd, or Skippy. As a reader you make a decision and read on. If you discover 10 pages in that your choice was wrong–you should have been imagining a girl, not a boy, you may feel you have to go back and reread, reimagining as you go.
• No name for main character. It’s a common failing of 1st person narratives. “I” is not a gender specific pronoun, so pronoun reference won’t deliver the hint. Nor does the “I” character often refer to himself (or herself) by name. Thus pages may go by without a clue. Readers tend to default to the gender of the writer: if the writer is a man, they’ll imagine “I” as a man–and vice-versa. If they guess wrong, they’ll be distracted and irritated–even if they blame themselves for it, as readers often do–wrongly, in my opinion.
• Minor character narration. If you’re writing your story using a minor character narrator, better name him or her early–even if you have to start the story “My name is Joe Hollis, and…etc.” Otherwise, for reasons similar to those in the “no name” situation, the story might go pages with no clue as to who and what our narrator is–no name, no gender.
• Anachronistic names. Naming a 17th Century noblewoman Lady Wendy. Or a medeval knight Sir Bucko, will get readers minds whirring on whether or not the folks in those eras would have been named that way. Even if the distraction is subliminal, it will eat away at your total effort, which is a story illuminating the period in a way that’s totally convincing.
You’ve probably got many more examples of naming do’s and don’ts, I invite you to comment. I’d like to add to this list, and I’m sure there a plenty of issues left. Let’s here from you!
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Some people are particular about book covers and one of my quirks as a reader (read: something that leads me to snap judgments) is character names.
It’s usually not a good sign to me when all of the characters in a book have common first and last names. The writer can’t go too far in the opposite direction and give everybody really unusual names either, but I always find it more interesting when at least one of the characters has a nickname, ethnic last name or unusual first name.
There are also certain reactions and stereotypes some names evoke and unless the writer is going for that, I think she has to be careful.
I don’t want to get specific, but each generation has its own popular names. They often come from characters on TV shows or from celebrities. I’d avoid those like the plague — unless I was intentionally trying to characterize the person as someone whose parents were big “90210″ fans — or something like that.