People and Names - and onomatopoeia

By Lifeline · Feb 26, 2017 · 731 · 4
  1. Characters and Names: why are they such a big hangup? In real life, we all get saddled with random names our parents dreamed up when we were born and no one knew into which kind of person we'd grow up. Some of us fit our names, some don't (I don't think I fit mine ;) ), however we didn't have a say in what we got called. So in real life, any specific name doesn't correlate with specific character traits, it would have to be totally random - or not?

    That's the big question. Ludwig Wittgenstein basically said that the meaning of a word is purely a function of how it's used. The implications are for one, that social expectations get saddled over time on certain names.

    - Like the first letters of the alphabet gets more attention (because they are called first) and thus is more likely to stand out.
    - Like having a stand-out name among classmates usually makes for teasing and bullying, making you more likely to become a loner

    Yet that's not what I wanted to say here (it was just a side effect of looking a few things up).

    I want to ask if the combination of vowels and consonants that make up the sound of a name also form the person's character you are describing. This morning I renamed one of my secondary characters and was stunned that the mental image I had of him suddenly changed and got a lot more serious (sidenote: I liked that a lot so I kept the new name). Maybe that's just how my own mind works, but it sure was a moment of stun. I'd love to hear if you've had similar experiences. Does a name correlate with a specific character you have in your mind? Or can you assign any name to this person and the character wouldn't change?

    For me, the name makes the person and the person makes the name. There is only one fit - if I change the name and I change the person.

    edited to add after a bit of research: So far I can tell from my limited research it's proven that this name-face-character correlation exists. It even has a name: onomatopoeia. Look it up - it's a fascinating topic :)
    zoupskim likes this.

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  1. zoupskim
    I think changing a character's name halfway though a WIP is going to have this effect; you have this blob in your head, this amorphous idea of a character defined by words, imagination, and descriptions. The name is part of this, as thinking of Bob, or Aubrey, or John instantly links to pages of text and interaction. Changing that name is going to affect how you see them.

    I personally work backwards from this idea, that names have meaning and define a character. Meaning, I make sure the names of characters don't carry any specific weight or meaning before I used them. I try to make them distinct enough from each other so you know who is who, know 'John' working next to 'Jon', but beyond that I just use normal names.
    zoupskim, Feb 26, 2017
      Lifeline likes this.
  2. big soft moose
    A lot of action hero characters suffer from 'dramatic naming syndrome' where the name is deliberately chosen to reflect something hard or dramatic Jack Reacher, Joe Hunter, Nick Stone, Jesse Stone, Joe Pike and so on.

    I am somewhat guilty of this inTDS with Duster (although thats a nick name, his real name is Steve Miller) or in Dark Fire with Aidan Darcy (who's name means dark fire in celtic - in my defence I had the name before the title... and this series is going to follow the "Richard Castle" naming protocol .. Dark Fire, Dark motives, Dark justice, and so on)

    Also sometimes the character name is inspired by the person on who the character is based, e.g in TDS Elin Strider the FMC who is a very very attractive female PI who specialises in honey trap and corporate espinoage type operations is based on a friend of mine who is also incrediby actractive and who's name is similar but sufficiently different that she won't be identifiable

    Also a lot ofthe time I'm working only with 'by names' - which by their nature are dramatic and reflective of the character, but i can still see how changing one could wreak havoc- for example a critiquer told me I couldn't call 'blade' in ATW Blade because people would think of the wesley snipes film , but changing it to something else played hell with my perception of the character
    big soft moose, Feb 28, 2017
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  3. Lifeline
    Oh yeah, that's exactly how it was with me (the name dramatically changed my perception of the character) - but it made my story better so who am I to quibble? :rolleyes: I didn't choose the original name because it expressed something specifically (as @zoupskim mentioned), but changing it suddenly changed the character (as @big soft moose found out) ;)

    Looking forward to TDS then :) sounds like a real engaging story! Get writing :D
    Lifeline, Feb 28, 2017
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  4. zoupskim
    You know, I need to backtrack on this a little.

    For my serious attempts at writing, like my current WIP about a war and several of my older drama short stories, I do what I mentioned above, that is keeping names bland and realistic.

    In my comedy attempts, however, I use every naming trick I can think of: Naming a giant, swearing solider "Gunnery Sergeant Maximus 'Tex' Battlemaster the 3rd" for instance, or naming a dumb character Jethro.
    zoupskim, Mar 2, 2017
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