Living the Fictional Dream

Naming is such a tricky thing. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, a character will spring to mind with his or her name already in place. Sarah Kirby from “The Widow and the Stranger” was like that. Some of the characters from my novel-in-progress — Caryn, Sean, Brilynn — as well.

And then there are the ones I have to struggle for. I flip through name books or name websites, looking for the perfect name. Sometimes I’ll pick a letter of the alphabet and go through all the names for the appropriate gender that start with that letter. I’ve always believed that characters should have names starting with different letters so it’s easier for the reader not to get them confused. In a novel, you can have a couple with the same initial, but the shorter the story, the more strictly I try to adhere to this rule.

I always thought that my experience naming characters would be helpful when it finally came time in my life to name a child, but now that my first little one is on the way, it’s not proving such an easy task. Of course, for the baby, my husband and I actually have to agree on a name. (Well, I guess that’s not always true, but it’s important to me — I want him to love what we name our child just as much as I do.)

The problem is, we have very different ideas about what makes a good name, especially for girls. We had our boy’s name totally picked out, but since the ultrasound said girl, we’ve been wrangling back and forth for months.

I love plant names… Sage, Holly, Rose, Laurel. He thinks that those names are too sissy, and has outlawed all plant names. Left to his own devices, he chooses many names that I think are too common or boring.

And, as if we didn’t have enough trouble between the two of us, there are always plenty of other people to offer suggestions and opinions. My sister loves the trendy names, like Piper and Taylor. My in-laws prefer more traditional names, like Ann — and they especially dislike names coming from the natural world (like Sierra) or names that would have nicknames. One friend told us that we should be sure to name our baby something that you can find on those racks of keychains in souvenir shops, because the child would be disappointed all of her life if she couldn’t be a part of that. Another friend tends to point out negativity in the meaning of a name (Leah was the unwanted sister in the Bible, Sage is a big ugly bush).

Now I understand why some people don’t tell anyone the name until the baby is actually born and the name is on the birth certificate, LOL! But a lot of times, the comments are helpful and encouraging, and sometimes other people see something that we didn’t see before. My husband especially gets a kick out of announcing the “name of the day.” I think it amuses him when people don’t like it!

We still have several months to go, and I have faith that eventually my husband and I will settle upon the perfect name for our little one. We have three top girl names that haven’t really changed in a while. And, of course, if the ultrasound proves wrong about the gender, we still have that boy’s name all ready. I suspect that, at this point, we need to meet our little one before we can decide on the perfect name.

But all this drama and back and forth over names has made me appreciate how much easier it was when I was just naming characters. Sure, those characters are very real to me, but if you’re writing along and suddenly the name isn’t working for the character, it can always be changed. And, when it comes to a character’s name, there is only myself to please.

Whether for a real person or a character, names are important. Names are identity. Names say a lot about who a person is. Nothing tells everything about a person, of course — I’m sure there could be an assassin or a ninja out there named Ethel or Maude — but names send a certain impression out into the world, and, for both my baby and my characters, I want to make sure that impression is a good one!