Speaking of names

[TheDustyZebra]

Mouse's thread on place names comes just in time for something I've been pondering. People names.

If one is writing about a future in this world (or after we've left it for other places), is it better to make an attempt to extrapolate the oddities that names have taken to, making up fanciful names for ordinary humans, or is it better to keep relatively normal-to-now names?

I don't find it jarring, myself, to read something that was written 80 years ago about the present time and see that everyone is named whatever was current back then; they didn't, for the most part, anticipate the Rainbow Moonbeams of the 70's or the Tiffanies of the 80's or the Apples and Blankets (or Beezow Doo-doo Zoppittybop-bop-bops) of today, and that doesn't really bother me. So I tend to keep relatively normal names when writing about something 100 years or more in the future.

Does either option bother anyone, when you run across it?

 

[Mouse]

Names go round though, don't they. Like fashion. Ivy and Ethel and Arthur are all old names getting popular again now.

 

[Purdy Bear]

My characters usually come to me with names already - I dream a lot of them. For strange names I use vehicle number plates to inspire me.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I do a bit of both; a lot of normal, and then the odd different one (often the main characters, but not always), 'cos I think there must be some new ones by then, too.

 

[Fedos]

My characters usually come to me with names already - I dream a lot of them. For strange names I use vehicle number plates to inspire me.

This is sort of how a lot of my character names come just not through dreaming but through my subconscious. I could be reading a book for instance and mispronounce a character name in my head and I'll go with that just amended some. I also pretty much always google the names my subconscious gives me and most of the time they are not well taken.

 

[Interference]

Kylie. Once there were none, now the name's everywhere. Simon gained vogue for sixties' and seventies' children. Names may have more significance for parents as generations pass (Moonflower Rainbucket probably didn't seem weird to Mr and Mrs Droughtymouth) and no doubt a fair number of Astrids will emerge when we actually do get to the stars.

Sometimes, when I'm inventing names, I do it kinda like Countdown and take a couple of consonants, a handful of vowels and see where they lead me. One of my favourites, come about in this way, was Hueffhuart, which looks like it could have been real to some nation at some time. My most favourite made-up name, though, is Syiillian, because I know exactly how it's pronounced and I like the sound of it as well.

Most names get abbreviated in some way, though, so Res, Orlo, Fanso and others could be future-abb.s of simple modern names, just as Del and Tel have somehow become derivations of Derek and Terry.

 

[AMB]

There is the hundred year rule of baby names.

Given time names often cross the sexes, and not just from guys to girls.

Obviously there are names people just make up, stupid spellings of respectable names (I'm looking at you, celebrities!) which could then be corrupted further...

Biblical names seem to be popular still. I see no reason why they won't continue to be in the future. And there are surnames that become first names...

Names for strengths and virtues will likely cycle.

Interference: I do love that thought. Especially since Astrid has nothing to do with space (I know, doesn't stop people). But Estelle and Stella probably fit with that too.

Anyone know of anyone named after proper elements?

 

[The Judge]

For my SF I've kept to current surnames, on the basis they're not likely to change, and for the most part current forenames, too. But I note -- and casting no aspidistras here -- that the names mentioned so far, save for Inter's made up ones, are very anglocentric. One of the most popular forenames in the UK now is Mohamed and its variants, and Asian names are commonplace here, let alone in Asia itself!

So even in a UK/US based story which is set 100 years in the future there ought to be some non-white names, and in a colony where there would be emigration from all over the world, there could well be more eg Chinese-descended people than all other nationalities put together.

EDIT: can't think of any element names in English, but I've heard of a Skye (though she could be named after the island) but I think some Chinese names have elemental aspects.

 

[Mouse]

One of my friends called her daughter Aurora. Which I thought was awful. (Apologies if anybody named Aurora is reading this!)

 

[Ökuþórr]

For fantasy I like to make up the names using my in world language.

For sci fi I like to use a combination of old and new names or from two different cultures that one normally wouldnt expect to find combinations of.
Some examples.
Septimius Hadden.
Cavarillus kärkkäinen.
Ariana Kaneda.
Idunn Choi.
Omolara Osvifsdottir.
Olafemi Artamova.
I love names. And for me, they are sufficiently odd enough to be convincing sci fi character names.

 

[Venusian Broon]

One trick I see a lot (and it's one I'm using )

is to introduce a charcter with their full name which is long, non-standard and looks 'futuristic' and then assume that people that know them will cut down their name to a snappy one or two syllable tag or use their official 'surname' only etc...

Like the thread on town names, a persons name has to fit and sound right, and I like to get that comfortable feeling that the name looks good on paper.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

One of my friends called her daughter Aurora. Which I thought was awful. (Apologies if anybody named Aurora is reading this!)

Or, indeed, your friend; make sure you close the pc if she calls!

 

[Ursa major]

One of my friends called her daughter Aurora. Which I thought was awful. (Apologies if anybody named Aurora is reading this!)

It could be worse: her surname could be Ellis, thus giving people the opportunity to tag her with the nickname, Borey**.

I've tried to avoid being anglocentric by using the names of real (but long dead) people from the Continent. (There's a little bit more to it than that, but nothing relevant to this thread. )




** - Aurora "Borey" Ellis.

 

[Venusian Broon]

OMG! Cosmic synchronicity knocks me to the floor gasping!

This thread made me think about the names I'm using.

The first name of any character that I settled on in my current WIP was for a main character, a girl/woman, that for some reason 'asked' for the name Kish.

I liked it immediately: no one I had ever come across had the name (didn't even research it to see if it was one); it looked exotic and I liked the sound; I knew it was the name of an ancient city in Sumer and Kish was to be of Persian descent; I didn't think it had any other meaning. That was about 2 years ago.

Now because of this thread, the (research) imp of the perverse poked me with his annoying curiosity tickler and I searched the internet for it. (At first in case Kish was the name of a cheap and nasty fish paste in Poland).

I find that the name Kish does exist - but seems to be for men in early biblical times. No biggy, I'm setting the WIP at about 12,000 CE and it doesn't appear common today. Let's go further; an internet sources says Kish means Lay bait or Lure.

In the grand scheme of my novel that is almost exactly what her character does.

I need to go and lie down with a cold towel over my head and ponder on the nature of reality (while in my head, Kish gives me a mischievous and playful grin) ....

 

[Ursa major]

In the grand scheme of my novel that is almost exactly what her character does.

I need to go and lie down with a cold towel over my head and ponder on the nature of reality (while in my head, Kish gives me a mischievous and playful grin) ....

That happened to me, and it does feel strange when one discovers that one's chosen names are seemingly significant.

I chose the first names of the two protagonists in the frame story** at random: one because it was the only specifically Welsh name I knew off the top of my head; the other because it seemed to match her surname. When I looked them up, they have meanings that, at a spiritual/religious level***, would place them at direct odds with each other (which indeed they are in the story).


** - Which is generally unimportant until the end of the series.

*** - Which is something that could not, usually, be further from my mind.

 

[Flugel Meister]

I do find that with fantasy novels authors seem determined to come up with the most complex or unpronounceable names possible, which is particularly problematic when there are a lot of characters and they're introduced in quick succession.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with elaborate names, as long as the characters are memorable.

 

[Interference]

Slartybartfast - unforgettable name.

 

[Flugel Meister]

Love it!

 

[Boneman]

I do find that with fantasy novels authors seem determined to come up with the most complex or unpronounceable names possible, which is particularly problematic when there are a lot of characters and they're introduced in quick succession.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with elaborate names, as long as the characters are memorable.

Yeah, it's almost as though the writers feel they have to imbue their characters with a name of such gravitas that it will take on its own meaning, separate from the actions and thoughts we'll see and judge them by. Does it work? I'm not sure it does, as I can't recall any...


But I thought Zaphod Beeblebrox was pretty cool...

 

[AMB]

And Ford Prefect certainly isn't pedestrian.