Recently a friend of mine posted this tweet:
Ever create a character name that is so fitting for that character’s personality and culture, only to have a friend butcher the pronunciation so badly as to make you constantly think about changing it? Stupid friends.
#writers #amwriting
https://twitter.com/Albert_Schmidt/status/1410037358003732483
Sorry if I contributed to the butchering, but to be fair I butcher many real names too.
It got me thinking though about my own character names and the impact they’ve had on the story. The first occurrence was when I was initially working on “Corruption Within” and had a character named Lucas. Lucas was whiny and pathetic. I grew to loathe him. That’s a serious problem for one of your protagonists! The first change I made was to switch his name to Dathan. Suddenly he was a different person, and going back to edit his scenes changed his behaviour to someone more defiant than whiny. That’s a lot of power from a simple name change!
In “Veiled Allegiance” I had a character who needed a nickname, but I struggled to find something fitting. I gave him a placeholder of The Lieutenant.
“You’re obviously the brains of this group. An officer I suspect? Maybe a… lieutenant?”
Veiled Allegiance – Third draft
Naz was silent as he considered how to respond. “Why does it matter?” he asked.
The Spider scoffed lightly. “We don’t go by our real names here. I think Lieutenant suits you fine.”
There were two major problems with this placeholder nickname. First, the significant amount of military presence in this book meant there were a lot of lieutenants running around. It made it hard for the reader to differentiate. Second, a character in one of my favourite series was named The Lieutenant and I always felt like I was ripping off the name.
Lucky for me, the same friend I mentioned at the top of this post provided me with the perfect nickname of Honey Badger. As a bonus, it gave me the opportunity to have subordinates call him Badger and disrespectful characters refer to him as Honey.
“You’re the one who bested our Armpull in combat, yes?”
Veiled Allegiance – Fourth draft
“It was a draw,” said Armpull, stepping forward to protest. A glare from Emira stopped him and Armpull retreated, hanging his head.
Naz defended the bouncer. “He is correct. We stopped before a victor could be decided.”
Emira scoffed. “He’s easily twice your size. I suspect the stalemate achieved your goal, and thus you were victorious. You remind me of the vicious honey badger, attacking creatures that dwarf it. Since we don’t go by our real names here, that will be what we call you.”
You’ll note The Spider has a different name in this scene as well. Emira was always the name her subordinates used, but now is also her common name. The Spider is a derogative name reserved for those few that do not fear her.
Don’t be afraid to play with your character names. In some cases, no name is better than having one! The feature image for this article shows Baby Yoda, eventually known as Grogu. Based on reactions I’ve seen, people just outright refuse to acknowledge the character’s actual name and continue to call him Baby Yoda. The story would’ve been just fine never letting us know the character’s true name and simply stuck with The Child.
How can these naming snafus be avoided? One apparently effective approach is to interview your characters before you write them. I’ve tried that, but it all it revealed to me was I didn’t know these people yet. I was probably doing it wrong, or still just prefer to get to know the character in context. That’s one of the joys of writing; find a process that works for you.