Renaming

I think I have stumbled upon a half decent comp for the first novel in my new series: It’s my Martha Kent story. Imagine Martha Kent if Jonathan had wanted to turn over the alien baby to the authorities, and she went on the lam to keep Kal El/Clark safe. In a medieval fantasy world.

This brings me to my topic:

CHARACTER NAMES (symbolic)

When I teach archetypal criticism, we discuss character names quite a bit. I have the students take notes on various ways that authors use names on a deeper level. Then we check for them when we meet new characters. Here's my list, with a few examples.

# 1

Names that are words, with denotative and connotative meanings. "Sweetie Pie" is adorably lovable and loves Opal instantly in DiCamillo's "Because of Winn Dixie". Porter's "Granny Weatherall" is old (and dying) after "weathering all" of life's hardships. In The Lord of the Rings series by Tolkein, "Grima Wormtongue" uses his tongue (language) to worm (burrow) Saruman's messages into King Theoden's ears, with quite grim consequences. "Cinderella" cleans her stepmother's hearth, getting "little cinders/ashes" all over herself. Disney's "Scar" has psychological scars from not being the king, and literal scars on his left eye.

It helps to know some foreign words (or to look them up). Two quick Shakespeare examples: "Benvolio" wishes good things for his cousin Romeo, while "Malvolio" wishes bad things for Toby Belch.  The legendary "Tristan" is destined to be "sad." I could go on all day...

Sometimes, a character is so indelible, his very name becomes a word with connotative meanings. Case in point: The miser, Ebenezer Scrooge. 

So, class, you don't know why Alice Walker picked "Myop" for the name of her young heroine in "The Flowers?" Look it up! Does the naive character see the world in a nearsighted way? Does that change? Because...

# 2 

Irony.

As Thomas Foster is keen to repeat, irony is an author's trump card. It's delicious!

# 3 

As are, of course, allusive names. You know quickly what a character is like (or not like: IRONY) or have been given a heads-up about what kind of journey she is about to go on when names recall other characters or historical people. I like to play a little game with my students. Who is referenced?

Scrooge McDuck? (We start easy!)

Anyone named Juliet, Sherlock, Pollyanna, Jack, Gretel, Alice, Alexander, Diana, Jesus, Mary, Samson, Delilah, Abraham (double dose of reference!), Noah, Adam, Eve... You get the idea. Knowing Shakespeare, Greek myths, fairy tales, and one's Bible really helps.

So when Jafar's hench-parrot is named Iago, it's not an accident. (I usually have to explain that one, which is easy because I have an 8' mural of Othello and Iago on my classroom wall.)

Just for fun, we usually spend a moment considering the name Harry, which now alludes to a certain boy wizard. But for Rowling and all the British kids reading about Harry's adventures for the first time, his name must have evoked Prince Hal (eventually Henry V) from history class and Shakespeare's version of the Hundred Years' War. Even if Rowling picked the name just because she liked it, that resonance is there. And it couldn't be more perfect.

#4

The lack of a name may have deeper meaning. Nameless characters are often generalized, anonymous representations of struggles that all of us endure. Or characters without names are being dehumanized... When one character refuses to learn another character's name, or refuses to call them the correct name, or uses a belittling nickname rather than a given one, that character is demeaned. It can also dehumanize a character to refer to him by his title alone. He becomes his job, not a full person. This extends to women who are referred to only as Mrs. [surname of her husband]. 

Finally,

#5

When a character's name changes, it marks a change in character. 

That seems too simple, too obvious. And a good author will handle this name change business subtly. We read several short stories where the main female characters are defined first in reference to their husbands: Mrs. Marroner. Mrs. Mallard. Mrs. Hale. They do not "earn" their own names (Marion, Louise, Martha) until they gain control of their personhood and are no longer purely defined in relation to someone else/their husbands.

Digging deeper, why do two of these three random characters' names start with MAR?

It's right there in #3: allusion to Mother Mary, the spotlessly perfect mother. The chosen one.

BACK TO LIO AND LAMB...

When I started writing Lio and Lamb's backstory (Haven), I needed a name for their mother. For several important plot reasons, I didn't want her to be too lovely, and I picked a name that I didn't like much to reflect her physical plainness: Thora. It's not a bad name. Thora Birch is a lovely actress. And there's some irony in naming a fairly powerless, southern islander after the Norse god Thor.

But the more I got to know her, the more I realized that she wasn't an ugly girl, or even plain. She had just been isolated too much as a child, so no one had told her she was beautiful. No one was there to say it.

The name I've been using for almost two years started to grate on me. I would type the letters, knowing that they were bound to disappear one day in the twelve seconds it takes to do a Find>Replace all.

When I realized my comp, that this is my Martha Kent story, it hit me. I had been using the name Marjaana for Thora's mother, a minor character who doesn't even appear in the story. I could steal that more lovely, resonant name for my main character.

I love that her name holds the traditional MAR, as her key role in the overall story is being my main characters' mother.

In twelve seconds, it was done.