Jane here, and I’ve spent some time today choosing names for various minor characters in the mystery I’m working on. This is a game I enjoy, and it's an important one, because names are as important in fiction as they are in real life.
The main participants have been named already; I find I can’t describe anybody properly, or predict how they’ll behave, if I don’t know what they are called. But there are people in the story who have a more limited role, but all the same a crucial one, so I can’t keep referring to them just as “the guard” or “the trader” or whatever.
I know that some readers find it hard to get their heads round Latin or Celtic names. I recognise the feeling myself, I experience it sometimes when I read Russian novels, and for the same reason – the names are unfamiliar in themselves, and in real life, characters would often be referred to not just by one name, but two. There’s also the fact that, in the very cosmopolitan Roman Empire, many males were called something ending in “-us” or “-o”, and the womenfolk something finishing with "-a".
My editor gave me a useful piece of advice when I sent her my first novel: try and make sure every main character’s name begins with a different letter of the alphabet, which will help readers distinguish between them. I’ve done my best, though by the time I received this excellent tip I’d got a strong idea of my sleuth and her sister, and they were Aurelia and Albia, characters well-developed and names unchangeable. Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all.
How do I choose names? Usually by looking through books, translations of Latin authors, good histories of the period. I just run my eye down the index, and if a name looks promising I make a note of it. Durio and Ulpia are among those I found this morning, one male and one female as you'd guess: both are short and have distinctive initials, so I'll check them out further.
Many authors offer readers the chance (often as a prize in a competition) to have a character called after them. This is a lovely idea, but one I can’t really follow myself, because only a handful of first-century Roman names are still in use today – Marcus, Amanda, Claudia and so on. If the winner of my contest was Wayne, or Kylie...well you see the difficulty. Even George or Elizabeth would give me problems; they have Latin versions, but these originate from much later.
So I’ll stick to browsing through books, a pleasant task anyway, and one which often sparks off unexpected plot ideas, when I begin to check out the names I've picked up from the index. In fact this morning, as I started looking up my index references, I discovered a vivid description of some jewellery, made of…no, on second thoughts, you’ll just have to wait till the book comes out!
I guest-blogged on Friday on Naked Authors on this very subject, Jane.
Names are so important and I have great fun creating ridiculous names for my upper class English folk in the Lady Georgie books.
Posted by: Rhys Bowen | July 06, 2009 at 08:01 AM
Yes, that must be fun! I wish I wrote Roman comedy - maybe I will someday - so I could come up with daft Latin names. Though it would be hard to better those in UP POMPEII, that wonderful un-pc tv series of blessed memory. Ludicrus Sextus was one character, and Nauseus...and the Frankie Howerd character who held the thing together was Lurkio. I was so pleased when I found there actually is a Lurkio (usually spelt with a c not a k) in one of Plautus' plays!
Posted by: Jane Finnis | July 06, 2009 at 10:34 AM