Incidental Characters - to name or not name?

[Ray McCarthy]

Yes, it's to do with the main characters taking any notice of the names. Though a character met only in one paragraph might reply to MC, "But Mary told me you ordered the Cheese burger without sauce or pickles, well maybe it was for a different table"
We don't care that she is Mary, she took the order, we never meet her again, but it might be natural for a name to be used.

The MC is cross because he was going to explain something using the gherkin from his burger, or something ...

 

[Ursa major]

"But Mary told me you ordered the Cheese burger without sauce or pickles, well maybe it was for a different table"

If the absence of sauce and pickles happened more than once, I expect the MC would soon think of Mary, as a repeat offender....

 

[tinkerdan]

For me the largest concern is what is needed at the moment. If you don't need a name then don't give one. This can work with characters that show up later in the sense that they might not need a name when you first meet them, but then later they become crucial and the name comes.

I have one scene where the server is given a name because she will show up often latter on.

I have one scene where a woman and her daughter show up and then not so much later until the next book and then the daughter gets a name but they only show up once. By the third book they become important to the plot so the mother gets a name and they even have a last name. It was all predicated on what the POV character need at the moment until that last book and then whether the POV character thinks they need it or not the names have to be there for the reader's sanity. I can't keep calling them the woman and the child.

 

[Ursa major]

Isn't that rather like the opposite of Star Trek's putting of minor characters at risk in red shirts, in that the author is a providing a cast-persistence notification service? And would people remember names from one book to the next even if names were few and far between?

While we have the concept of Chekov's gun, I'm not sure signposting-by-name the not-as-incidental-as-one might-suspect characters is quite the same. (It also sounds, to me, a bit like a cast list that's been spread out over the whole book.) And it isn't as if providing an incidental character (incidental to the story, but not to the PoV character) with a name is the same as splurging a lot of biographical info (which would be irritating unless the whole point of the story is the cast of characters rather than the plot).

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think you need a balance between what is natural for the POV character to be thinking (or saying) and overwhelming the reader with too many names -- this last being particularly important when the names are unfamiliar or would all sound alike due to naming customs of an exotic culture you are writing about. But if the names are all like Bob, Ted, Mary, and Sue, then it's far less likely to be a problem. And, as someone pointed out above (I'm too lazy to go back and find out who), you don't want to be using a description every time you mention someone (especially if the POV character wouldn't think of them in terms like "the tall man," "the blue-eyed blonde," or "the ancient seer").

One thing that has happened to me is that I've named characters, characters who were meant for walk-on parts, and the moment I named them they acquired personalities, and later went on to become major characters. It can be useful naming them for your own benefit, if only to keep track of them, even if you don't plan using the name in the finished manuscript.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I agree that it's very much dependent upon whether the MC would know the person's name and whether they would use it or think of it.

[The tall, black-haired man strode into my office. "Do you have those reports I asked for yesterday?" he asked.]

Oh, it's the MC's boss. Unless you're making a particular point, for comedic purposes, of the fact that MC doesn't remember names for two seconds, he should probably think of the man by name. Even if we never see Mr. Boss again.

 

[Mouse]

Everybody's already said what I'd say.

But... I have a moment in one of my novels where the MC is possessed by a spirit and the spirit names two men involved in a murder. Originally, I didn't name these men - I just gave them a descriptor. They weren't important, they never featured. My editor asked me to name them. I didn't want to (I'm still not entirely pleased the names are there because I feel they're just dropped in), but she said that it'd make it more believable to the other characters there that the MC had been possessed because he knew these two names. So...

 

[M Harold Page]

I tend to use relevant tags for scenes, as in "Knife Guy" and "Big Mouth." If I name people, then that signals Pay attention, they'll come up later. Event then I use relevant tags.

Olaf's hand drifted to his knife.​

If a character made a point of learning everybody's names, then I'd handle it in narrative summary:

He worked through the Chinese meal, thanking each waiter by name as the dishes arrived.
​

 

[Denise Tanaka]

I usually give simple names to minor characters for the purpose of keeping them straight in my head. My rule of thumb is whether or not the POV character notices them. My prince who lives in the castle, and is guarded by the same bunch of spear carriers, can recognize Tom or Bob or Jake as the same dude who stood guard at his door yesterday. It breaks up the monotony of referring to them as Guard Number One and Guard Number Two. Also, I've used the technique of listing off the names of noblemen and their ladies at a banquet scene as a means of giving flavor to the world, even though I never describe each lord or have a dialogue with them.

 

[jastius]

I wrote a story once where I named everyone the protagonist came in contact with and gave a mini bio... Because the brain eating alien virus that transplants the consciousness with that of the slug alien overlord, gave everyone a new alien identity. So you had to know the old one first or you wouldn't understand it was a replacement.
It was a lot of typing.

If they ask you about a character being named, just tell them he is desperately important in book six. Absolutely essential.
And since few people extend their trilogies into book six, who knows? He might be.
(If you get to book six you can have him hold the door open so your protagonist can get into the magically guarded building, then see? Absolutely essential.. Good old Trevor.. Always count on him to to the right thing)

Its up to you, really. The rule of thumb is, add stuff to tell the story. Take stuff away that interferes with that.
While its not really telling the story, neither is it interfering. if naming makes it easier to tell the story, then name.

David Eddings had a habit of introducing minor characters completely and then getting back to them in the next series.. A literary reduce reuse recycle effort, i imagine.

But there are a lot of tricks you can play with naming a character. They can be your story macguffin.
I like hiding details behind names, personally. Using a name actually allows for maintaining ambiguity of sexual identity.
So if you are not sure whether your character is a boy or girl or alien sock puppet.. That might be the way to go.
Then you can decide later that since the publisher says you need a strong female character to help sell the novel, Kowalsky the peg legged Magnum 45 pulling partner is now a woman..
Just remember to write the best story you are capable of writing to begin with. The rest is editable.