Tuesday 10 September 2013

What's In A Name - Damian Harvey

Character names are so important and coming up with names is a task that I can love or loath with equal measure. It seems that some characters arrive ready named mind whereas others are far more problematic, and I just can't seem to settle into the writing until I've got the right name.

Working in schools with children on their creative writing shows that they too have difficulties with the naming process, though they are often more than happy to settle with the first thing that comes into their heads. You can almost guarantee that the chosen name will be Bob. I try to get them to come up with something different, a bit more unusual perhaps... think about this character and what he/she/it is like. If there a better name than Bob? I just know that the next suggestion is going to be Bobby - but we don't leave it there.

I feel that some names have been used up now and I would find it difficult to have a character called Harry in either a picture book (Harry and The Dinosaurs) or in a longer book (Harry Potter).

In a series of books I wrote about robots I thought it would be good to give a few of the robot characters machine, tool or industrial sounding names so I had Crank, Ratchet, Buzzsaw,  Pylon, Sparks. Ratchet had to be changed at the last minute as the name matched that of the lead character in the animated movie, Robots. I couldn't think of anything at first but the title of a song came to my rescue and I called him Al. When I came to create a strong female robot character I wanted a name that sounded strong, feminine and futuristic. I thought I was being quite clever calling her Avatar but did didn't feel quite so clever when a film of that name was released.

A series of books about a family living in the Ice Age needed, I felt, a title that was Flintstone like so I had fun mixing and matching words until I came up with The Mudcrusts. Whereas the Roborunners characters had names linked to machines and tools etc I wanted something more primitive for the Mudcrusts. Some of the characters were named after personal characteristics - Lowbrow Mudcrust has a prominent brow and Chief Hawknose predictably has a large hawk-like nose. Other characters had names that were linked closer to nature - two sisters are named Flora and Fauna and Lowbrow's wimpy younger son is named Bogweed.

In school I try and encourage children to create names for characters that they might not normally think of as being names. It's a fun thing to do, especially when you combine everyday words, and can result in some very interesting possibilities for characters - sometimes we find that a name comes before a character but lends itself to visualising what sort of character it is. In a book I'm working on at the moment I have a nasty little piece of work known as Simian Scrape - a bully of a boy who bares more than a passing resemblance to a monkey. The most problematic character name for this book was for the evil villain - a mad scientist like character called Melvin. I knew Melvin needed to have a more sinister name but I just couldn't quite get it right, and neither, it seemed could the character himself so I have a scene in which the character devises struggles to come up with a new name for himself, though much to his eternal disgust, Mother still insists on calling him Melvin.

As a child I remember complaining to my own mother at her choice of name for me. Why on earth did she have to call me Damian - especially with all the movies about the demon child of the same name that seemed to hound me throughout my school life. "It could have been worse," she told me. "We were going to call you Warren but changed our minds when my mum said you would get called Bunny."

I think I'll settle with my own name after all and just have fun creating more interesting names for my fictional characters.

5 comments:

Pippa Goodhart said...

Oh Damian, I had just spent ages this morning trying to find a name for a boy character, and decided to call him Bob. But now I must try to do better! You're clearly a bit of a genius on the name front. What would you call a circus boy who hates the circus?

Damian Harvey said...

Ha ha - that's very kind of you. I had intended to write a well thought out piece on naming characters but I left it too late and ended up with something less worthwhile. Hopefully it reads all right though.
I'm sure that sometimes Bob is the perfect name for a character but it does make me cringe a little in school as almost without fail that's the name that comes up first - no matter what sort of character.
A circus boy who hates the circus??? For some reason the name Lorenzo Whelp popped into my head but it's (totally wrong I'm sure).
I think that for me it would depend on what the boy does in the circus and what country his family are from... sounds a interesting idea though.

Pippa Goodhart said...

Ah, I like Lorenzo Whelp! But was beginning to wonder whether I might call him Jules after Jules Leotard, the inventor of the flying trapeze. A boy being called 'Jules' would make him bait for bullying, which fits the story. I'll think on....

Damian Harvey said...

Brilliant name Pippa - I love it. I thought of variations on Barnum, Ringling and others ... it can be odd where names come from can't it and it's always good to have a name that you understand in terms of relevance but that might not be obvious to others. A good talking point in schools etc...

I'm sure Jules was famous for something other than the trapeze though but can't quite put my finger on it. Sounds almost made up doesn't it...

Damian Harvey said...

Of course, I'm wondering if Robert (Bob) Leotard would work now...