Not Your Usual Suspects

PLAIN AND FANCY

 

As writers, we’re all keenly aware of the importance of naming our characters.  In my experience, the only other naming comparable in angst and nail-biting concern is what to call a baby.  But even that’s easier.  You have guideposts—family names to pick from (all except your own because you’ve always hated it), but that leaves you with parents, grandparents, aunts, wealthy (?) uncles, distant cousins, well-known forebears.  Mothers maiden names can be pressed into service too and often sound elegant—Hunter, Douglas, Davis, Montgomery, St. John, etc.  Think of calling to your three year old with, “Lunch is ready, Montgomery.”  Monty is adorable too.  And then there’s your favorite name, the one you’ve always loved that you’ve been saving for your first baby.

            But when it comes to characters, the angst ante goes up.  There are no familial guideposts to help you, just an ocean of possibilities.  Yet the names have to “fit” the characters and their times, be ethnically correct, or if not why not, clever, witty perhaps, and as some would insist, memorable, or better yet, unforgettable.

            That’s why a few weeks ago I wasn’t too surprised to read a rant about how awful it was to use ordinary names for your characters.  Jack was offered as an example of what to avoid.  It’s ordinary, doesn’t leap off the page, nobody will remember it.  An author, this writer said, should have the imagination to come up with names that reflect, well, creativity.

Okay, here’s a short list of unusual ones:

            Mal Loda-Bride (for a drag queen, you kind of have to say it out loud)

            Heda Lettuce (another d.q. name)

Rilya (acronym for Remember, I’ll Love You Always)

Ivory and Ovary (female twins)

Semaj (James spelled backwards)

            I really like Semaj.  When pronounced, it’s sexy and mysterious.  So there’s a lot to be said for creativity.  In fact, I’ve used two examples from this list in my mysteries:  Heda Lettuce is a drag queen in Designed for Death. 

Rilya’s in a WOP.  And I’m seriously considering using Semaj in a future opus.  Ovary, though I think I’ll leave alone.

True, Jack is ordinary-sounding and unremarkable, except when it isn’t.  There’s Little Jack Horner, Jack the Ripper, Lee Child’s Jack Reacher and John (Jack?) Corey, Nelson DeMille’s wise-cracking detective, CIA agent and occasional spy.

            Sometimes, though, a book does require an arresting name for an off-beat character.  Devalera Dunne, for example, in my Murders by Design Series.  Her father wanted a son, never had one, so he named his daughter for a political hero, Eamon DeValera, president of Ireland in the nineteen hundreds.  To balance the quirkiness of Devalera, Deva for short, I needed a plain, meat-and-potatoes foil, so her beloved husband is . . . you guessed it . . . Jack.

The truth is not every character must have an unusual name, the kind that tends to stop the reader’s eye mid-sentence.  For the sake of variety and balance somebody has to be known as Jack--or Mary.  Heroines can’t always be called something wild or even downright nutty like Flo Rida, not even if they do live in Florida and hang out in the Keys. 

Do you have a favorite character name to share?