Naming the Beasts

One of the things I enjoy most about writing novels is naming my characters.

My books are peopled with characters bearing names I would have given my children, had I borne a dozen instead of just two: Louisa, Sara, Quinn, Sam, Matt, Lila, Joanna, and Georgia, the protagonist of my work-in-progress. (For the curious, my real-life children are Gracie and Emma.)

I also choose names I wish I’d had throughout my life: Susannah, Kate, Ellie. (Kathleen is a fine name, but I guarantee you any “Kathy” you meet was born in the 1950s. I was born barely a month before the ‘50s were over, and I’d rather be a Kate.)

Some names I pick because they have a sentimental meaning for me. For years I’ve called one of my daughters “Betty” as a nickname (much to her chagrin), after an old Dentyne commercial from the 1970s in which a guy chewed some gum and then said “Hellooooooo Betty” to the beautiful girl who walked in the door. Betty (in A SIMPLE THING) may be my favorite character of any I’ve written.

Finally, I search out unusual, quirky names to fit unusual characters, or just because it’s fun. I would never name my kids after mountains, but one of my characters names his twin sons Hood and Baker after two of the peaks in the Cascades. A character in my work-in-progress is a very strait-laced, organized, rational woman whose only eccentricity is the unusual names she gives her children: Wren, Rockett, and Magee. The funny thing is once I’ve named them, the characters begin to take on lives of their own, living in their names, becoming those names.

It’s my Adam moment. And I love it.