This is a debate I like, and I've not had it with anyone for a while: Is it a good idea or a bad one to give your protagonist or central character an unusual name? This is the place to share examples of the good and the bad, and your own experiences with character naming. Here are a few examples from books I've read and one from my own writing.
My personal take on this one is that it's a good idea if appropriate to the story you're writing and the genre as well, but you should still approach with caution. Giving your character a unique name will not automatically make them unique, and in many cases a certain amount of explaining the name might be needed. Just because I write mostly sci-fi and my worlds are several hundred years in the future doesn't mean I can just call anyone anything and expect people to just run with it. Sounds like common sense really: my alien should have a name like Xarbon and my human should be Jack, and if it's the other way round I've either got one hell of an interesting world or a story that might just go viral because it's so bad and the character names say it all.
Even some revered writers are prone to the odd name problem. During my infatuation with Palahniuk's writing a few years ago I remember liking how some people had odd names, like Tender Branson (which when explained turned out to be not quite a name so much as a title), but I thought even he went too far when I encountered a character called Oyster. To reverse the scenario, I remember reading Robin Hobb's Liveship books and thinking it strange that she'd made up fantasy-style names for most of her characters (and very well fitting ones, IMHO) and then called one of the principal antagonists Kyle. To use the same series again and find a happy medium, I was fine with her protagonist being called Althea - a name which does come up in modern times but still carries and olden day feel to it.
Sometimes the arguments for and against a character's name can be tricky to weigh up. The very reason I thought of posting this was how a few months ago I took some stick from a friend of mine for calling my latest protagonist Shadow. Of course the conversation that followed was mostly driven by me defending my choice of name for this character, but later I did end up thinking again. Here's what he told me:
(1) The father who chose that name for his son is a domineering hard-ass who runs a farm out in the country and would never pick a name like that, and his wife, the one person who has any control over him, wouldn't let him even if he did.
(2) The reader I seemed to be aiming the story at was most likely younger adults, as that's what Shadow is, and even they won't like this character just because he has a name they might think is cool. And perhaps the very reason I picked the name was that I thought that.
All fair advice, but I decided I'd change certain things in order to keep the name. Perhaps his mother chose it and it was the father who reluctantly caved in. During my first draft, Shadow does change his own name, for various reasons, and it fits well with the running theme of people sometimes needing to hide behind different identities.
Perhaps the best defence of all was how I'd had the name in my head for a while and selected it based on what this boy would go on to do: he develops a mind power that enables him to track people without being in the same room, or even the same vicinity, and gets hired by a big company to do what basically amounts to stalking and corporate espionage, so he literally can 'shadow' people. Like all writers who doubt themselves I found myself thinking 'was that just a terrible idea?' Perhaps it wouldn't be so terrible as long as I never explicitly point it out to the reader, and certainly NEVER write a line like 'My father could never have predicted it, but everything I ended up doing made my name fit me so well.' That's where that sort of idea becomes laughable rather than clever, but I think its a fine line and some of you might still tell me I've crossed it already. My defence is at least I'm a risk taker. And I've been pleasantly surprised by how nobody who's read my excerpts with this character has raised the name as an objection. I was expecting at least one, even if it is science fiction.
Lastly I feel like raising the easiest excuse the modern writer has for off-the-wall names: 'But people give their kids stupid, embarrassing names in real life all the time! And it's not just the hippes who do it!' It's true. I did once have a fun conversation with a pediatric nurse that started with her saying 'You wouldn't believe the things they call kids now.' She'd looked at cots and seen names like 'Sunshine' and 'Prince' and apparently once even saw 'Espen,' which according to the parents was the sports channel ESPN with an extra e added. (I actually liked that one, I can't wait to find the right character for it!)
In one of the Scandanavian countries (I think it's Sweeden) the government actually created a name register and parents have to get their child's name approved before it can go on a birth certificate because people were getting so sick of ridiculous names. It did cross my mind that perhaps the government in my Shadow story could have done the same thing and his father chose the name as a defiance of the authorities - that's an idea that fits the man in question. I don't like the principal of government name control in real like though, if only because sometimes that risky name actually does become a brilliant choice: the late Storm Thorgerson being my favourite example - a artsy, almost rock and roll kind of name, belonging to a man who grew up to be an illustrator and left a legacy of famous album covers. I first heard of him through Planet Rock a few years ago, where the interviewing DJ couldn't help his introduction: 'Yes, that really is the name on his birth certificate.'
In conclusion perhaps we should think of characters as being like our offspring: if a name could make or break them then think very carefully before you set it in stone.
I agree with the last paragraph. name a character like you would a child of the given parents.
Chacron, I hate to say this but regarding the name thing you're just wrong regarding the real life name ethics. I don't care the reason no one has any excuse to name their child anything interesting. You have a right to be who you want to be as a person, and that includes being a boring person who minds their own business. And after coming into contact with the man named Queenjesus I realized that some names prevent that. A decent person should be trying to give a name that is common enough to not merit comment and uncommon enough that it is usually the person in question when they hear someone say it.
As for the weird names in books, it makes it much easier to remember their name if it is normal, or at least translated.
I'm ambivalent to the strange character name, though I think I edge more on the side of supporting it. Having an interesting name is sort of the literary equivalent of giving a cartoon character a distinct profile in silouette, it's instantly defining.
I mean just in straight literary books you have protaganists with names like Rabbit Angstrom, Technical Seargant Garp, Fuckhead etc. My personal favorite character names from any fiction off the top of my head are Yossarian, Hiro Protaganist, and William Pilgrim from Ilium.
I always think of an anecdote that I can't remember if it's true and I heard it in real life or if I read it in a book, about some hippie parents that let their kid choose his own name when he was three years old and he chose "Crash Limousine." Anyone remember that story?
I think if I had a gripe about modern fiction it wouldn't be characters having quirky names, but moreso characters that lead quirky lives just for the sake of being quirky. It's strange how prevalent the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope is in otherwise serious work.
@Dwayne: Are you being sarcastic when you say Chacron is 'just wrong', and when you say 'no one has any excuse to name their child anything interesting.'?
Honestly, I do have a problem with stereotypically "unique" names like Shadow. They seem forced, not natural or realistic. Fiction is held to a higher standard than real life when it comes to being, well, realistic -- we expect fiction to be a portrayal of real life, a reflection, that winds up making the standards for "realism" higher in fiction than in "true stories." I usually use the analogy of Augusten Burroughs; no one would buy it if he sold his life as fiction, but we buy it as a memoir.
Anyway, I don't like intrusively unique names. They're just unnecessary. Tender Branson wasn't as well-fleshed a character as Astrid from White Oleander, and her name is pretty stock for her heritage, despite being a standard American. I don't think name matters nearly as much as the actual character, and seeking a perfect name for a character is just, well, unnecessary.
@Strange - No. Names like 'Queenjesus' are boarder line child abuse.
@Courtney, if you're referring to American Gods, it was established that Shadow wasn't actually his real name. His real name is much more awesome; read The Monarch of the Glen if you're interested.
For a lot of my names, I cycle through this site until I find something that either sticks or inspires me in a particular direction.
@Nathan, I think she's referring to how I called a character in my own writing Shadow, as detailed in my initial post. There's a character called that in Gaiman's American Gods? I've heard of the book but knew nothing about it until now. I always figured someone else might have gotten to that name for a character before I did.
Yeah, Shadow is the main character in American Gods. Might be worth reading if your characters share the same name.
The only list of names I've used quite a few times is this'un. I usually go by the method of lifting names from the back of record sleeves or whoever is on TV at the moment. In need of a bland white guy name, and Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern is on, so I'll go with Andy. I've been thinking of working Sheldon Turnipseed into something, but I think Big Bang Theory has someone named Sheldon and that show is vile, so Sheldon is unusable now.
I think the name Tender Branson is probably not the least realistic part of that book. Naturalism or a photorealism are interesting styles but I don't particularly think it's the main focus of most popular or, really, interesting fiction. The main conceit of fiction is that it has some fanciful narrative frame to it that gives the finite thing sense, unlike IRL. There's logic and then there's poetic logic, and all that.
I'm sure it's that I was pretty well indoctrinated into the po-mo school of thought growing up though, so I'm sure realism holds a different significance to me as it does to those with other reading backgrounds.
I think the name Oyster (in Palahniuk's Lullaby) is meant to be his Wiccan name rather than actual name, although we never find out his real name. But in life you do meet people and only know them by nicknames, so as a first person narrative this could be considered accurate.
Unusual names in books can work well (the name Obsidian is quite beautiful) In real life it depends on how borderline ridiculous they get.
Where I work we have three kids/babies called Xavier, Logan & Rogue.
Where I work we have three kids/babies called Xavier, Logan & Rogue.
That is pretty amazing. Also, really glad to hear there isn't one named Cyclops.
Or Beast.
Where I work we have three kids/babies called Xavier, Logan & Rogue.
By happenstance or they are related?
As I understand it, if you text your name plus them name of your partner (or the names of the fictional parents would work too), someone will send you your perfect baby name. I had trouble reading all the fine print, but any charges you receive will surely be worth it.
An elementary school teacher has 3 Gagandeeps and a Salome in her class. Not making this shit up.
I have a character in a spec. fiction piece I named Niveah (characters parents were futuristic bo-hos). Renee was in the class where that story was born, and she hated it (the character's name) so much I think it might have ruined the story for her. Would I change it? Absolutely not.
World famous cowboy Butch Myers named his kids Rope, Tygh (pronounced "tie"), and Cash, respectively. Cowboy kids names are the best.
By happenstance or they are related?
No. I think they are all pretty close in age though.
I think it totally depends on the tone of the piece you're writing. If the novel is whimsical at all you can have a Hermione Granger or Oswald Cobblepot or Barton Fink. (BTW the last name is an important component to an unusual character name, and you haven't told us what it is.) If its tone is more serious, I think unusual names can feel a tad precious and leave a bad YA fiction aftertaste.
Forget fantasy, if you've read non-English-speaking writers, you've dealt with some "weird" names (weird to you, but not necessarily weird to the author) which have little-to-no associative qualities.
And if I'm really worrying about the name, the story/writing probably isn't interesting enough. (That's thinking as a reader. As a writer, I just don't stop until I think the name fits; and the reasons for the fit, if there are any reasons, vary between instances.)
