A black-eyed Susan by any other name

What if Ishmael had said, “Call me Leonard?” 

And what if Ishmael’s Captain hadn’t been named after the evil idol-worshipping ruler in the Book of Kings?

At the least it would have created a lot more work for Mr. Melville.  He’d have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do!

Instead, with his choice of those two powerful, meaning-laden names, he deftly planted the threads of the themes in MobyDick into the minds of his readers.

In Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver includes the history of her lead character Dellarobia’s name: 

Dellarobia was “…the given name her mother first sounded out for [her] birth certificate in a doped anesthetic haze, thinking it came from the Bible.  Later her mother remembered that was wrong; it wasn’t the Bible, she’d heard it at a craft demonstration at the Women’s Club.”

When Dellarobia learns that her name isn’t biblical after all, that she’s been named after a wreath made by gluing pine cones and acorns to a Styrofoam core, it presages for her a lackluster performance in life, her own letdown and her impending fall from grace.

By explanation of her character’s name, Kingsolver gives us an insight into Dellarobia’s roots, her self-perception, her outlook on life, her expectations for and disappointments in herself.

Makes you want to choose your characters’ names with care.  Why would you be casual about something so important?  That book of babies’ names is only a starting point. 

Kingsolver goes a step further:  Dellarobia is married to “Cub,” the son of “Bear.”  And she hasn’t married into a Native American family! 

Those nicknames alone tell a big story about father and son, yes?  With only that much information, their nicknames, we can surmise the father’s stature and disposition, the son’s status and maybe even the role of tradition in that hierarchy.

Imagine if father and son were “John” and “Russell.”  Just feels like a missed opportunity, doesn’t it?

Wouldn’t you love to ask Cormac McCarthy about the impact of names?  Why do you suppose he didn’t name the man and the boy in his Pulitzer Prize winning novel?  He might argue that names are so important that the wrong ones can be detractors. 

What if he had sent Fred and Fred Jr. onto The Road?  That’s a different story!


How important is your character’s name?  If she’s pivotal to your story, so is her name.  If not, just call her “the woman at the cash register” and everything will work out fine.