This month we have expert advice from Simon Whaley on naming characters, Ten Top Tips advises on how to create the perfect poetry competition entry. Useful Websites features one for research, one to help you write poems and, in keeping with Simon’s articles, one to help generate character names. Plus, there’s inspiration as usual.

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The Name Game

By Simon Whaley

If I told you I had a female character in my imagination, called Winifred, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you were now picturing in your mind an elderly woman, possibly sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles clattering away as she churns out a multi-coloured roll-neck jumper. And what would you imagine if I said I was thinking of another female character called Chantelle? Does Chantelle sound like the type of woman to be sitting in a rocking chair, whilst doing some knitting?

When it comes to deciding what to call our characters in our stories, it’s important that we choose an appropriate name. Some names may make readers think of stereotypical characters. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In a short story, when there isn’t room for a lot of character description, a stereotypical name might work best. However, it’s important to realise that how we name our characters can influence what our readers think. Take Reginald Crackenthwaite, for example. Reginald could suggest a mature gentleman, whilst Crackenthwaite hints at a family history linked to northern England. Meanwhile, Chester C Coleman the Third, could be an oil tycoon from Texas who is a particularly chubby around the waist!

This also demonstrates that both first and second names can help to infer a character’s age, the story’s setting and even the character’s social status. To me, Prince Barry just doesn’t sound right! (With apologies to anyone out there called Barry.)

In real life, we often alter a person’s name to suit their character and age. Whilst Reginald might suggest a mature chap, he was a baby and a boy at one time, so would everyone have called him Reginald during his childhood years? His mother might have shouted, “Reginald!” when he was being naughty, but his friends from school might have used the name Reggie, or a nickname, such as Crackers, instead.

It’s not always easy coming up with appropriate names, but there are tricks writers can call upon.

Maps
Place names often produce great surnames, because originally, many people’s surnames were based upon where they lived. In the Middle Ages in England, Fred from the village of Stafford would become known as Fred of Stafford, which was eventually shortened to Fred Stafford. Place names can also inspire in other ways too. On the main road, between the town where I live and my local county town, is the village of Leebotwood. As soon as I see that name, I always imagine a teacher shouting across a school playground, “Lee Botwood stop fighting this instant and come here!” And in my imagination I see a scruffy, eight-year-old boy, with muddy, grey, school trousers, torn at the knee, and a graze on his cheek, wandering nonchalantly across the playground, kicking a stone with his right foot and his head hanging low.

A favourite place of mine is the UK’s Lake District. Near the popular beauty spot of Tarn Hows is a small hill that many people don’t explore, which goes by the name of Tom Heights. What a cracking name! And if ever you find yourself driving along the M6 motorway, Charnock Richard Service Station might not be an obvious name source, but Richard Charnock certainly sounds like a character who could be useful one day.

Gravestones
A wander around your local graveyard could provide some fantastic names. Over the years I’ve collected some brilliant names, including Horace Humble, Sarah Seasons and Ethel Flitterwick. Not only do you get the names, but also the date of death, and sometimes their year of birth too, which gives a clear indication as to the era the name is appropriate for.

Telephone Directories
A useful surname generator is the telephone directory. Flick through the pages and stop randomly. Some names may be familiar, whilst others may be new to you. Take this a stage further, by going to your largest library, and scouring those telephone directories that cover the areas outside of your local region, too. Remember, surnames can identify a locality, or family history. Living in the English / Welsh borders, my telephone directory contains a lot of people whose surnames are Jones or Williams!

Baby Books
I shall never forget the day I bought a book listing first names, called the Dictionary of First Names (Bloomsbury, ISBN: 9780747512233). On the front cover was a picture of a stork carrying a bundle in its beak. It was purchased during my lunch hour and when I walked back into the office, I sat down at my desk, pulled out my lunchbox and began eating my sandwiches, whilst flicking through the pages. About five minutes later, I suddenly realised that I had a group of women standing behind me and one of them said, “Oh Simon, you’ll make a great Dad. When’s it due?” They were most disappointed when I told them I was merely giving birth to a handful of characters for my next short story!

What makes these books useful for writers is the information about the history and the derivation of the names. Take Christine, for example. Apparently, it derives from the male, Christian, but from Christine we get Christy, Christie, and Chrissie, whilst Kirsty and Kirstie is the Scottish version, and Cristyn is the Welsh version. This common name has produced six variations and there are many more. Sometimes a variation of a common name, can make our characters more interesting to readers.

The Internet
The Internet is an excellent source, and if you search for ‘first names’ or ‘surnames’ or ‘family names’ and then include a country of your choice in the search criteria, the results will provide details of the most common names in these countries. When I sell a story to a UK magazine, I try selling it to an Australian magazine, but before I do that, I search and then rename my characters with appropriate Australian first and surnames. This helps to make the characters more identifiable to that readership.

Naming characters can help to raise money for charity. Katey Nixon, whom I met at a writing conference, has collected the 100 most common boys’ and 100 most common girls’ names of every decade of the 20th century, and every year of the 21st century (up to 2008), in Britain. It’s a great resource because it means that if your character is in their 40s, then you can see which were the most popular first names at the time of their birth. Katey provides the information in spreadsheet format, and there’s a video explaining how the spreadsheet works. All she asks for in return is a £2 donation to the charity she is supporting. You can find out more information at www.justgiving.com/ipreferhappyendings.

As you can see, there are many ways in which you can find an appropriate name for your characters. In a novel I’m writing, I’ve chosen a place name as my character’s first name, which is slightly unusual, but it fits my character really well. And, often it is the more unusual names that readers remember. Who can forget some of Charles Dickens’ characters, like Scrooge, Martin Chuzzlewit and Charity Pecksniff? If only some parents spent as much time agonising over the names of their children, as we writers do with our characters!

Simon is a tutor for the Writers Bureau and a full time writer. He’s the author of the bestselling ‘One Hundred Ways For A Dog To Train Its Human’, published by Hodder & Stoughton, and eight other books on a wide range of topics including gardening, walking and grant funding. He’s also written for a variety of UK publications including ‘The Lady’, ‘Heritage’, ‘In Britain’, ‘The Observer’, ‘Daily Express’, ‘Country Walking’, ‘Cumbria’ and ‘Trek and Mountain’. His short stories have appeared in the UK, Ireland and Australia.