an alphabet of names

[marycatelli]

You want to vary your names so the readers can tell the characters apart.  Make them long and short, keep them from rhyming, make them distinctive, give them different initial letters. . . .

The last is especially important for your dyslexic readers.  I have heard of dyslexics who can not puzzle out the name and so go by the first letter.  Some can puzzle out the first few letters, and others the first letter and the general shape -- but variety helps them.

May be impossible in a long work to have fewer than 26 named characters.  (Worse if your setting has no fitting names beginning with X or Z or what have you.)  But varying them can help even there.

The hero or the heroine, or even major characters, I chose the name with care, partly because knowing the right name -- with all its attendant baggage and expectations -- helps define the character.  But bit characters -- well, before I use them all, I look down the character sheet and chose the first letter of the alphabet that hasn't started a name yet, if I have no ideas for a name.  It helps limit the search.

Once I get over a couple dozen, I find I have to go through and count how many start with each letter.  Then I go for the unrepresented letters.  If I don't watch out, the names will cluster on one -- or at best, two or three -- letters.

Comments

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

Man, I'll say. Or focus on the same vowel sound-- that's my little glitch. Keisha and Peach. Tracy and Stella...

But it can be fun, too. In one slash fandom I like to play in, both heroes are named Jack.

[marycatelli]

Even when you're aiming for a deliberate effect, those sorts of name games can be difficult for the reader.

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

Great post, as always.

I remamber having to rename some of the characters in my first novel because they all ended with an 'ee' sound.

[marycatelli]

Ah, the gentle art of figuring out which name pattern you are too prone to. . .

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

You're spot on about starting the names with different letters. The Silmarillion is one of the worst ever examples of how not to do it.

Tolkien let his inner philologist get in the way of his story telling that time.

[marycatelli]

The ones I find actually the worst are those where the name are not names I know, and are all the same length. Sidney's Arcadia, or Chinese novels where they transliterated the names.

Then, I didn't have that difficulty with the Silmarillion.

[tracy-d74.livejournal.com]

Yes, I tried to do this for my WIP. But I have to A names and two J names. But they are different . . . I think anyway. If it ever reaches an editor we can play name wars. ;)

[marycatelli]

J. K. Rowling got away with Harry and Hermione for two major characters. (Anyway, hit a couple dozen named characters and you're bound to repeat now and again.)