Names with numbers in

[Kylara]

I'm currently working on a children's novel for uni (which is great fun) and as usual I cam up against my not having a name for characters yet. I usually use a filler then when the character has become more obvious they get a name (obviously the odd one or two who come with a name too). This has somewhat backfired in this novel though as I have various stations and I gave each station a filler name, and each character used that name then a hyphen and a number to differentiate.

This seems to have now stuck, so I have many characters who are told apart by the number after their station name (so the Moon station characters are Luna-one etc). They have become characters that want to remain named like this.

Is this going to be a problem for the reader? I know a few novels that use a numeric naming system but they are all adult novels. Mine is probably veering towards YA but not actually YA, so not aimed at 7 year olds.

On a more vague note. Does anyone else do this or see a problem with it (except for remembering who is who?).

I think it might, in this case, be a little confrontational about the characters and their gender/looks/motivations etc. I have one character who has moved stations and thus has a new name under the current system. Each station is a little microcosm and whilst they are all the same creatures, each station has its own creature quirks due to how few move around from station to station...I am getting a little worried about how my filler names have now stuck! However, it has given the book the best title ever - The Uprising of the Garys.

 

[Lex E. Darion]

Would the numbering system be indicative of their society? As in, is it a type of faceless, non-individualist type of social structure where names would likely to be replaced by numbers? Or could this have been how their society worked in the past and it's just an echo from then 'it's always been done this way, so we're sticking with it'? Would your character who's moved have changed his name anyway if he moved stations or was it just filler (just realised I may have got this wrong - has he moved in the story or a ch. that you've moved and will only be known in the one station?)

If it could show an aspect of how the society works then I think it's a great idea to keep the filler names (although I suppose that wouldn't work as the name would have to be Luna 98767655899878 - depending on the population and history of your stations). Maybe they start again back at 1 every 10,000 or something?! Could it add to the story; they want to become more individual and have actual names and thus gives you another plot line?

Well, I've just confused myself, but all-in-all I think it could work

 

[Ursa major]

It depends.... (Which is not usually my way of saying "I don't know" but it may be in this instance.)

However, who is (or who are) the PoV characters (or is this written in first or third person omniscient)? If it's obvious that these names are the kind that the narrator, or the PoV characters, would feel comfortable using**, then that is at least one hurdle crossed.


** - It seems it is, unless you are saying that it is the characters named in this way who are "insisting" on keeping them, which is different. A person might, for instance, want everyone to call them "Wondrous Dragon Trainer Gifted To Us By Heaven" -- okay, that's deliberately ridiculous to make a point -- but there's a good chance that others might call them other things (if only in the privacy of their own heads).

 

[The Judge]

I've had filler names stick, too, and it's annoying when you want to give them another for very good reasons. Damn characters thinking they can call themselves what they want!

Anyway, how do they address each other? If everyone on the Moon station uses the whole name eg "Hello, Luna-One, how are you today?" it's going to sound a bit stilted. But if on the other hand it's more relaxed eg "Hi, One, how's things?" will there be a risk of confusion between the Luna-One and Mars-One characters?

If there are only a handful at each station named, then I don't think there should be too much confusion over who is who, as Luna-One and Luna-Nine are pretty different as names. As soon as you start heading north of that, though, it's going to be more difficult. Which brings in Alex's point -- if every one of these creatures is named (albeit off-page) what happens when there are several hundred thousand or several million of them? Do they have real names on their home planet? If so, why is it different on the stations?

If you've a rational answer for why they use numbers and when, and there are only a few named creatures in the story, I'd go with it. Saves having to scan the Baby Names lists!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I think, provisionally, it could work fine. Any chance I could see a sample to help me decide?

 

[Kylara]

I have a very provisional opening 1000 words I could send you via PM Dusty.

There aren't many on each station. There are more Garys because they run the weather and the weather gets multiple stations due to local climates

In my head, my rationale for keeping them is that there are only a certain number on each station, there aren't huge volumes of the creatures. There is a station school where they get training (only mentioned in passing at this point but may crop up later I don't know, I'm pantsing this one if you hadn't noticed already!) but they don't get their names until they go to a station. So one of the Lunas was a Flora before moving to the Moon station. As and when they leave/retire/give up/die they are replaced and the number is assigned to them. I have a maintenance crew who so far go up to four hundred, but you don't meet them all. Just gives a sense of scale for maintenance creatures I guess.

Somewhere between names and rank maybe? But without the numbers being an indicator of how important, just random, or in the case of the maintenance, age, as their numbers aren't passed on (they've got to make their job sound more dangerous right?!) It's a sort of arbitrary naming. Not indicative of gender or necessarily home station, nor of class, skills etc, just a random assignment when they get to a station, filling the previous number's place. Additional station members would get an additional number. Maybe I could play with how the names feel arbitrary to the creatures, but they don't know why or what a "true name" would be...hmmm maybe a bit too much for a book aimed at (currently!) 11+ yr olds.

I was thinking the more uptight characters would say the whole name, and more chilled ones would use the number moniker. It is still swirling about in my head trying to sort itself out. I'm not so good at full pantsing, I usually have a grand plan and then pants between the points...at this point I have a grand plan consisting of Garys uprising, but I don't know why, or when, or whether they are good or bad...

The annoying thing is them having suddenly become characters with the filler name and number fitting them - I have a three that likes to hide in the kitchen and not do work, and that just seems totally what a Luna-three would do. I blame it all on having to find fresh filler names as Gary is usually the go to. Now I have Garys, Lunas, Marinas, Darrens, Floras, and the sun ones who are yet nameless but somehow want to be Apollos...So far no humans have been named but at this rate they'll end up as "persons"!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Logan's run and other stories (Azimov's Nightfall) have used numbered names.
Isn't it also in some rich USA dynasties and Kings, such as Louis XXVI or whatever ... Elisabeth II ... Popes too

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Do, please!

I've just had a flashback of some sort, regarding the use of numbered names in SF, but it will take a while to process to the point where I can think what it was about.

 

[Kylara]

I know some use it - Toby Frost's excellent stuff for example, but I am struggling to think of any children's books that do. It's a fine line I think writing kids stuff as you have to tone things down a bit, and use less of the big words, but at the same time not make it very dumbed down. As someone who has always had an excellent word knowledge and reading skill, life experience is somewhat working against me! And you have to engage readers even faster than adult books. It's much harder than I anticipated, although that is partly my fault for writing children's and not YA. My children's stuff seems to tend towards the comic, and I am never certain I can sustain it, so end up with bunches of paragraph fragments of stories that I leave for fear of ruining. This is the first that I felt happy enough to lose the somewhat sarky amused voice from. I hope anyway!

Not to mention my style tends towards the purple and the descriptive. I've used more dialogue in the first 1000 words of this than I have in the first 5,000 of my adult novel. Well it feels like it, and definitely more in the first thousand words.

It's in 3rd omni and has bits of free indirect discourse. You know I don't do 1st person! hahaha. Maybe one day I should try, be good for me.

I think the arbitrary naming might have to become a point that is subtly discussed and My Flora turned Luna is going to move again I think. Maybe an undercover Gary

 

[Hex]

Diana Wynne Jones (who wrote for a range of people from 5 year olds to adults) used to say that children were easier to write for because they paid attention.

I think as long as they're easy to distinguish, there's no reason why you shouldn't use numbers for names. If they're all "Luna-one", "Luna-two" kind of thing, I think it might be more difficult to distinguish them, however old you are because they will look very similar. It would make sense for the kids to shorten them and call each other "One" or "Forty-seven", and those would be more straightforward for readers to distinguish.

The Warhammer books on Tau (which are not aimed at children, but still) name the Tau by their planet of birth and then some other name (I can't remember offhand), so they're all named consistently for planets, but the names aren't too similar-looking.

 

[Brian G Turner]

They have become characters that want to remain named like this.

There's the danger that this is simply familiarity being a comfort, and it's there to be challenged.

The characters are - ultimately - under your control. After all, I suspect that you wouldn't let one of your horses decide how and where you were going to ride.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'm not sure how it would work in literature, but there was no problem using seven numbers to describe the Cylons in the latest Battlestar Galactica. But then, there were only 7* common models

pH
*not counting the Final Five.