Character names - do the first and last letters matter most?

[TitaniumTi]

I often have difficulty remembering non-English character names, especially if two characters have similar names. According to the link, we tend to focus on the first and last letters of a word; the order of the other letters is less important. The article starts with a clever demonstration of this.

Something to consider when naming characters:

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Disturbing for proof reading:
The most common typing errors are transposition of pairs of letters in a word.
The least noticeable error for fast readers is transposition of pairs of letters in a word.
Spelling Checkers don't understand contexts, semantics etc, so if the error is slat for salt the spelling checker is useless.
At least the spelling checker will spot the common typos that are not in its dictionary.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

Our minds can do more than we realize on a daily basis. For emaxlpe, it deson’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aepapr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm.

Or if ou ca ead thi essag yo ill se tha avin th irst or ast etter issing orks.

S1M1L4RLY, Y0UR M1ND 15 R34D1NG 7H15 4U70M471C4LLY W17H0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17

 

[TitaniumTi]

Our minds can do more than we realize on a daily basis. For emaxlpe, it deson’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aepapr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm.

Or if ou ca ead thi essag yo ill se tha avin th irst or ast etter issing orks.

S1M1L4RLY, Y0UR M1ND 15 R34D1NG 7H15 4U70M471C4LLY W17H0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17

That's a clever demonstration.

Disturbing for proof reading:
The most common typing errors are transposition of pairs of letters in a word.
The least noticeable error for fast readers is transposition of pairs of letters in a word.
Spelling Checkers don't understand contexts, semantics etc, so if the error is slat for salt the spelling checker is useless.
At least the spelling checker will spot the common typos that are not in its dictionary.

Ray, your comment about fast readers rings true to me. I read fast, which may explain why I'm less bothered than some people by poor editing of an otherwise good story. I notice the errors, but they often don't detract from the meaning of the sentence.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

it deson’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aepapr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale.

Not entirely true, however. Such transpositions don't slow us down much, but they do slow us down somewhat and subconsciously translating them into the words they are supposed to be is a little bit tiring. And that's just a few sentences. The cumulative effect of reading a whole page would show that it does matter and that keeping the first and last letters in the right place are not the only important thing.

But for an unfamiliar word or name in a story, I find that many readers will mentally transpose letters, or even add letters that aren't there or drop letters that are. That's why they may confuse characters whose names begin with the same letter even though the names are otherwise very different, and it's worse if they share the same first and last letter—no matter that they don't share a single letter in the middle.

So I think you are right, Titanium Ti, that it is something to keep in mind when naming characters.

 

[Juliana]

I try to avoid same first letter, but hadn't even thought about avoiding last! Something to think about...

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I'd not avoid same last letter on names. Because many languages the ending suggests male or female.

e.g. Female
-ette
-a (common for female versions of male names, such as Paula as well as purely female)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

By itself the last letter doesn't cause confusion ... as you say, there are common endings for the different genders in some languages. It's when the first and the last letter are the same.

But also, I think, if this is the case readers might pay less attention to the endings (just register them as male or female) and might fix their attention on any other letters the names have in common in addition to the first one.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Different lengths / numbers of syllables helps too.

Sometimes you might want two names the other characters confuse. But that is just me being awkward!

 

[Glitch]

...Spelling Checkers don't understand contexts, semantics etc, so if the error is slat for salt the spelling checker is useless...

I agree you can't rely on spell checkers alone. In your example, the transposition of 'al' in salt is a bit easier to pick in proof reading due to the different height of the characters. At least that's been my experience.

On the character names question. I do prefer names not to sound to similar. Checking my list of names, this means they usually start with different letters.

 

[MWagner]

I'm struggling with this in my work in progress.

Aretus
Arlochus
Craterus

Three important characters. In a fictional world where there are hundreds of named characters from a dozen or so culturally distinct cities, these three are from the same city. So my reasoning is it's okay, and maybe even desirable, that their names are somewhat alike in order to help readers group the characters by city (most characters from another city have names that end in "-on"). And the first two are related by blood. Still, I'm thinking they may be too much alike.

 

[Luiglin]

I always try create names that seem to roll off the tongue naturally, trying where possible to have them so that they can be read phonetically. If I can speak them aloud without getting tongue tied then I'm happy.

This is because when I read stories I 'hear' them in my head. As such there's nothing more annoying than having a character name that on paper looks great but is awkward to 'say'. It's only a petty peeve but one I try and avoid in my own creations.

 

[TitaniumTi]

I'm struggling with this in my work in progress.

Aretus
Arlochus
Craterus

Three important characters. In a fictional world where there are hundreds of named characters from a dozen or so culturally distinct cities, these three are from the same city. So my reasoning is it's okay, and maybe even desirable, that their names are somewhat alike in order to help readers group the characters by city (most characters from another city have names that end in "-on"). And the first two are related by blood. Still, I'm thinking they may be too much alike.

I'm not sure whether I'd confuse Aretus and Arlochus. They are both phonetically simple words, and the shapes of the words are different. As other people have said, these things also matter.

Context also matters. I recently read a book with two characters with very similar names. They were influential characters at different times in the story, and one was a protagonist while the other was an antagonist, so I had little difficulty distinguishing them.

 

[tinkerdan]

One thing that this does clearly demonstrate; is the reason why an author should not try to edit his own work. If this type of error gets past them the first time it will likely get past them the second and third and fourth....

 

[Warren_Paul]

I have heard in the past that your shouldn't have two or more prominent characters that start with the same first letter. The first thing the reader sees when reading a name is that letter, and will use it to recognize a character whose name is hard to remember. It's a mental trigger. If two or more have that same first letter, the reader might confuse the two of them.

 

[Davar]

I immediately precise that English is not my mother language. I also studied linguistics and I can certainly tell you that the article you mentioned and reasoning that proposes has nothing to do with the choice of a name. Especially in a literary work.

The mechanism of visual recognition, and the attribution of meaning to the signifier, follow different mental processes in short articles and complete books.

A name in a book is read and re-read over and over again so the brain memorizes the entire structure. We have to search the names that have phonetic characteristics consistent with the personality of the actions that the character makes in the book (or opposite if you want to create dissonance). Some sounds, as you know, are more pleasing than others so is right in search of a name that binds well with the story that the character finds a fundamental reason for its existence.

The name can be used not only as element of acknowledgment of an object but also as a tool of fluidity of the reading. Always respecting the requirements of compatibility for example, you can stretch a name, or use it it in its entirety if always for example a character has a name consisting of three words, to stop the run of the eye thus putting an unconscious underscore to the main subject without that the reader will be aware. There are so many of these tricks and only experience and evidence make it that you can handle them properly

 

[Nick B]

@ralphkern picked this up in Liberator, we had a Jake, JJ and Jane, in one scene they are all together. We didn't even notice this in writing, as is often the case. So, we changed Jake to always using his surname - Cutter. JJ and Jane, we deemed ok as JJ is simple initials and male, so they should be fine.

 

[goldhawk]

I'm struggling with this in my work in progress.

Aretus
Arlochus
Craterus

...Still, I'm thinking they may be too much alike.

They are. If you want to keep their names, give them nicknames and use them for most of your story. Only use their real names in formal settings.

 

[MWagner]

Aretus and Arlochus are related by blood (Arlochus is the uncle of Aretus), so there's a reason for the association. And Arlochus exeunts the story about 1/3 of the way in. Aretus and Craterus is more of a problem, especially as Craterus is the antagonist. He is often referred to as 'the tyrant,' but it would be awkward to have him called that all time, especially by characters who cannot call him that to his face.

The bigger issue is that I'm using classical Greek names for many of my characters, and those tend to end in -us, -as, -on, and os. And nicknames don't feel appropriate for most of the characters in this story (though there are some fun ones, like "the Dog Strangler").

I'll probably have close to 150 named characters in the first book of my projected series, almost all of them somewhat foreign-sounding to Western ears. Coming up with that many names that don't sound too strange or off-putting, matching those names to characters, and trying to keep them distinct from one another is proving a devilish puzzle.

 

[goldhawk]

Aretus and Arlochus are related by blood (Arlochus is the uncle of Aretus), so there's a reason for the association. And Arlochus exeunts the story about 1/3 of the way in. Aretus and Craterus is more of a problem, especially as Craterus is the antagonist. He is often referred to as 'the tyrant,' but it would be awkward to have him called that all time, especially by characters who cannot call him that to his face.

The bigger issue is that I'm using classical Greek names for many of my characters, and those tend to end in -us, -as, -on, and os. And nicknames don't feel appropriate for most of the characters in this story (though there are some fun ones, like "the Dog Strangler").

I'll probably have close to 150 named characters in the first book of my projected series, almost all of them somewhat foreign-sounding to Western ears. Coming up with that many names that don't sound too strange or off-putting, matching those names to characters, and trying to keep them distinct from one another is proving a devilish puzzle.

You mean their parents didn't have nicknames for them while they were growing up?