Write Good or Die

unnoticed and therefore easily accepted, or else be an intentional ploy to draw attention. These last can be tiresome: the big biker named “Tiny,” the pathetic loser called “Romeo,” etc. The name doesn’t have to do all of the work of character building, but it’s an important part of the package deal.
    Uncommon names are fairly common, as evidenced by a quick thumbing through your local phone book. A thirty-second scan of mine reveals Rollin Weary, Edward Wax, Oletta Waycaster, Webb Weatherman, and Forest Weaver. These real names would probably cause your reader to pause upon initial encounter. This isn’t necessarily bad, but even real names can be loaded. If your fictional Edward Wax is a candle maker or your Webb Weatherman is a meteorologist, you’d better be writing comedy or satire.
    One of the most common mistakes is making your character name sound too “namey.” In other words, the name sounds like that of a fictional character instead of a real person. For all my admiration of Dean Koontz, his character names sometimes sound artificial, as if churned out by some “random character generator” (Jimmy Tock, Junior Cain, Aelfric Manheim, Martin Stillwater, Harry Lyon, Joanna Rand). However, he is the only writer skilled enough to name a serious character “Odd Thomas” and get away with it.
    A fanciful name, even if memorable, can turn your readers away. My first encounter with Kurt Vonnegut was through his short story “Harrison Bergeron,” in which the “bad guy” is a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. I was a little too young to grasp the subtleties of Vonnegut’s satire, and the name annoyed me so much that I put off reading his work again for years. Now I understand what he was doing, and I still remember that name though I haven’t read the story since.
    The sound of the name adds tone to the character. While a stone-faced character might well be called Stony, he’s probably more interesting if he’s a Chuck or Dirk, which are both punchy, “hard” names ( Mystery Science Theater fans may remember “Biff McLargehuge”). A Richard is different from a Dick is different from a Richie is different from a Ricardo. Sue is not Suzannah, Suzie, or Susan. We expect an appliance repairman to be named Danny, not Danforth, or Fred instead of Frederick. An attorney or stockbroker will more likely be Charles than Charlie, or Lawrence instead of Larry. We’d probably be more comforted to have a doctor named Eleanor instead of Muffy, or an airline pilot named Virginia rather than Brittany.
    A character’s name is often the first and most vital clue to a character’s ethnicity, which may or may not be important to the story. Vinnie, Su, Ian, Darshan, Mohammed, Yoruba, Yasmine, and Felicia are probably going to create reader expectations. Names also carry generational weight: we envision Blanche and Vivian as older, more serious people than we do Dakota, Madison, or Mackenzie.
    On the other hand, just as stereotypes are often full of holes in real life, you can use expectations in a delightful turn of the tables. Instead of a truck driver named Mac, he can be Milton, a sociologist who enjoys traveling. Your New York cabbie doesn’t have to be Armaan, who may or may not be a terrorist; he can be Orlando, studying acting in night school. Just make sure the people, and the motivations that propel them through the plot, are valid.
    Villains are in their own special nominal class. Dracula is probably the perfect example. It’s practically impossible to pronounce without sinister implications. Freddie Krueger, Darth Vader, and Gollum are fraught with darkness. Stephen King shines at this: Leland Gaunt, Randall Flagg, George Stark (actually a pseudonym for writer Donald Westlake), Percy Wetmore, and probably the best one of all, “It.”
    Of course, King also gets away with a character having the ubiquitous moniker “John Smith,” but even this name choice serves a purpose, because King’s protagonist in The Dead Zone is an everyman Christ figure. You probably don’t want to call your soul-stealing, heart-munching bad guy “Bradley Flowers,” though you might sneak that in as a mild-mannered, Walter Mitty-type serial killer. Real-life killers like Charles Starkweather and Richard Speck sound ominous, while other killers like Albert Fish and Ted Bundy sound like somebody’s kindly uncle, so your character names, like all other elements of your fiction, have to be more real than