The Power of Names

Well it seems that once again Jamie and his blog has brought me back here, to my own blog. This morning I read his 'confession' about naming the characters in his stories. This of course did just exactly what he meant it to do. I got to thinking about the names that I have given people and things.

I guess that I am not always consistent in the way that I hand out names. There are characters that I have just given the first name that I could think of. Then there are characters who have been given a name because of the meaning. I might know what I want the name to mean, maybe foreshadowing something that would happen in the story. I might search for days for the perfect name. The funny thing is I have even picked the name because the meaning of the name would not fit the character. Other times the name I pick is due to the sound or feel of it. It was a name that flowed, it needed a certain sound to be right for the character.

But more and more, I lean towards picking the right name and not just the first thing I think of. If cannot come up with a name as I am writing I will leave a marker (NAME1 or Doc's NAME). I will do this so that I do not waste time on it as I am writing. Sometimes this person's name will come to me as I continue on through the story. But often, I will have to search for it.

The thoughts of how I named my characters also brought me to how I named my children. My youngest daughter has a name that means “dark-haired gift of God.” This name was chosen for her because we knew that it would fit her. When we first started looking for names one of our favorites meant blond or light haired. We knew that our daughter would never be light haired and it seemed wrong to give her a name that meant that. So even though we liked that name we continued the search. My older daughter's name means “elven light.” This now is a perfect name for this girl. Though at the time we gave her the name we did not know how well it would fit her personality. I wonder if she grew into the name or if we just somehow knew that it would be the right one for her. Now my son's name came from one of his father's favorite SF novels. This seems a perfect way for a geek's child to be named. But even here there were layers of meaning. My son's name and his father's name share the same meaning. So based on the meaning of the name he was named after his father. And on top of that, it was very similar to the name of one of the characters in the novel I was writing.

To me giving my characters the 'right' name is very important. I know that most people may never know or even care why I used the names that I do. But it is still important to me. I have spent a great many hours with my baby name book or name websites. Often that is how I start a new story, picking the names of the main characters. I can't get to know them until I have named them.