More about names

I am blogging again today on names and names invented by writers.  

With my most recent stories, I have found that I didn’t do as much name changing as I used to. “Beds and Blue Jeans” has the 2 lead characters, Pattie and Sam.   Rather simple names which didn’t have any particular meaning for me, but they seemed to fit.

For my first gay story, “Lovers of the Road” I wanted an Irish sounding name for my young Irishman, so I went with Connor which is a favourite.  Garth Clayton just sounded “American” to me.  (I Love American bible and other names).

In my latest “band” story, “Rough Music”, I was more particular about the names; Jefferson Randles was named after “Jefferson Davis”, because he was a southerner from a poor farming family.  Brandon, from California, had a name that would have been unusual in the UK at that time.  Jeff’s second wife, Claudelle is a name I invented; I wanted something unusual to make Jeff remember her... It was a variant of “Claudine” and sounded French.  Brandon’s wife is Boston Irish, and had a Catholic –sounding Name, Angela, and their two children were called Patrick and Catriona.

I sometimes have chosen names for characters by closing my eyes and poking my fingers into a names book…which is hopeless because then I start reading the things...

A few names I came across lately, invented by writers.  One I like was “Lorna” by the Victorian writer RD Blackmore. His most famous novel is of course Lorna Doone, and he seems to have been inspired by the Scottish place name Lorne.  This was in the news at the time since the Marquis of Lorne, a Scottish nobleman, was marrying Princess Louise, Queen Victoria’s daughter. 

The male names in Wuthering Heights seem to have been invented by Emily Bronte, but they are not much used in real life.  Heathcliff is the anti-hero, and his name is suggestive of his northern background and harsh character.  Hindley and Hareton are the other two names, but I don’t believe I have ever heard anyone using them in real life. Heathcliff is occasionally used, such as by the late film actor Heath Ledger.

Another name is Amanda which means “worthy to be loved”, and seems to have been invented by Colley Cibber the late 17^th Century playwright.

James McPherson, the poet invented some Scottish or Gaelic sounding names for his Ossianic cycle.  He claimed that they were translations of authentic ancient Gaelic poems by the son of Finn McCool… but they were written by himself.  He created some names including Malvina (possibly meaning Smooth Brow”) Fiona, Selma,

Antony Trollope had some pretty awful names, for his characters!  Like Thackeray he followed something of the 18^th Century tradition of giving symbolic names to his characters and they tended to be clunkers.  There is Sir Omicron Pie, Trefoil, for someone interested in Botany, the Quiverfuls who have 14 children.   Mrs Proudie is the name of the arrogant lady who is the “she Bishop” of Barchester.

Plantagenet is the unusual name for his most prominent political character in the Pallisers series – denoting the family’s ancient origins and relationship with the Royal family.   He also seems to have created the name Glencora, for Plantagenet’s wife.  She is Scottish, and it’s possible that Trollope found some kind of similar name during his time in Ireland, when he worked as a civil servant for the Post Office.  He loved Ireland and its people, and gave an Irish name to Glencora’s “true love”, the gambler Burgo Fitzgerald.  Burgo comes from the Anglo-Norman “De Burgh” which the Irish Gaelicised later as “Burke”… and Fitzgerald is also a Norman Irish name.  Other rather weird names he came up with for his women characters include Pomona and Aspasia, which he would have picked up from Latin and Greek in his classical education.  While many of Trollope’s names are awful – no other word for them- I have always liked Glencora.  And his other Palliser women have pretty and conventional names such as Violet, Laura, and Alice…