What’s in a name? Hurricane Dorian strikes again
Should I now change my character’s name?
“Why did you name your son ‘George’?”
“It’s funny, we’d agreed on another name, but when he arrived, that name just didn’t suit him. He looked like a George.”
How do we end up with such strong ideas about certain names? It says a lot about human powers of association that we can choose a name based on the way someone (and not even a grown-up person, mind you, a baby) looks. But no-one can deny it. Names matter. They split us along generational, cultural and racial lines. We hear a name and will have fixed ideas about the age, gender and social class of the person who owns it.
We’re surely all acquainted with a girl called Elizabeth, but does she shorten it to Liz, Beth, Lizzie, Eliza? Does she go for a less common abbreviation like Bess or Izzy? Each of those names suggests an entirely different person. Most of them are accepted names in their own right.
Fun fact: did you know that Buffy is an old-fashioned nickname for Elizabeth?
Characterisation
And if naming your baby is important, for authors, naming characters is just as sensitive an issue.
Shakespeare tried to argue that names didn’t matter, but we can probably agree that a play about lovers called “Trevor and Gertrude” wouldn’t have been such a hit.
As an author, you’re charged with finding the perfect name. One that expresses not only everything the character is, but also everything they will come to be by the end of the book. You have to account for what the name implies, how certain readers might view it, and how it works with the names of other characters in the story. Woe betide you if you have too many characters whose names are a similar length and begin with the same letter. Skim-readers will get them hopelessly muddled. One-star reviews will ensue.
The Name of the Wind
But babies, pets, and fictional characters aren’t the only things we name. Since the 1950s, there’s been a convention of naming hurricanes. It might seem inappropriate to offer a human name to something so deadly, but according to the American National Hurricane Center, the original reason for giving short and distinctive names to storms was to simplify radio communication and prevent misunderstandings when more than one storm was happening at once.
The authorities have a list of names employed on a 6-year rotation scheme to identify storms. However, names given to particularly big or famous storms are thereafter retired from the list to prevent future issues of confusion or sensitivity. And yes, in case you’re wondering, yes, “Katrina” was retired in 2005. After the scale of damage caused in the Bahamas, it’s probably safe to assume that “Dorian” will be retired this year too.
#AuthorProblems
And therein lies my dilemma. My book (the one I’ve been working on for over a year now) contains a character named Dorian. And he’s not any old character either. He’s one of the main people, he’s the love interest. He was also recently promoted to a Point-Of-View character. He’s big.
And now, in light of the fact that Hurricane Dorian has obliterated so many people’s lives, will there be consequences attached to using the name? Will people read the blurb, see the name and shudder? Should I forego the name in favour of something less emotionally explosive?
It would probably be fine if Dorian was the villain in my story, but he’s the good guy!
Weathering the weather
I know from personal experience that traumatic weather stays with you. When I was growing up, we experienced a tornado in my hometown of Birmingham. And I’m not talking about Birmingham, Alabama either. This was Birmingham, UK. Smack dab in the middle of England, a country not known for its perilous weather (unless you count flooding). But sometimes these freak storms happen.
The tornado came out of nowhere and destroyed a whole section of my city suburb. My parents’ house was unaffected, but I was there and experienced that terrible wind and the sky going dark. To this day, I have occasional nightmares about tornadoes. If I have such a reaction to a weather pattern that didn’t even materially affect me, how much worse must it be for people whose lives have been utterly destroyed?
Question: Do people from New Orleans still hate the name Katrina?
All publicity is…
Should I change the name? Is it an urgent matter of sensitivity?
Will the storm make the name more memorable? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Comments welcome!
Originally published at https://victoriakellywrites.com on September 9, 2019.
