Character names

corblimey

My reading output has increased considerably this year (thanks to my log) so I've found myself being confronted with a pet peeve more often than before: badly named characters in books.

They tend to fall into 3 categories, ones I can't pronounce or suspect I'm pronouncing wrongly (example: Corte in Edge, is it Cortee, Cortay or Cort?); ones that are close to a normal name, but slightly different (bad example: Lewie Ranieri in Liar's Poker which is a real person); and ones that are just a little off the wall (example: Cotton Malone in my current read, The Templar Legacy, "Cotton", seriously?)

Does it annoy anyone else, or am I just easily irritated?

Gamayun

I read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay with no idea of whether it was pronounced Kavv-al-ee-ay or Kavv-a-leer (the character is Czech). I leaned towards Kav-a-leer but alternated in my head as I read it!

MagicMarker

None of the above is as annoying as 2 characters with the same or very similar name. I mean why? Is the author trying to confuse the reader?

Oh, and Russian naming isn't half a pain in the nads.

giggii

MagicMarker wrote: »

None of the above is as annoying as 2 characters with the same or very similar name. I mean why? Is the author trying to confuse the reader?

Oh, and Russian naming isn't half a pain in the nads.

The main reason why I didn't like the Millennium Trilogy... so much flicking back and forward in the book to determine if the character was the good guy or the bad guy with the irritatingly similar name! :P

Harry Angstrom

P.G. Wodehouse was the master when it came to character names. Who couldn't forget Gussie Fink Nottle, Cyril Bassington-Bassington and Claude Cattermole Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright??

Quatermain

When trying to think up character names, I like to go for walks around graveyards. Admittedly, skulking amid headstones with a notebook does not give quite the best impression, but you pick up some worthwhile characters.

My personal favourite being "Maximilian Loveday-Valentine - Shot dead in a disagreement over the hand of a lady".

Carawaystick

It was only about 2 years later as I re-read LoTR that I realized the wizard wasn't called
Grandalf

second the russians and their patronyms
Also the similar named characters
then you have Crime & Puinishment with
Razumikhin & Raskolnikov.....

D-FENS

I guess it’s easier to give a character in a book a crap sounding name as it’s not said out loud like in a film.
I wondered about this only recently when I heard they were making Stephen King’s Under the Dome into a TV series, the lead male character in that is called Barbie

ThePinkCage

Naming a character is like naming a child - it must be done with thought. For most authors, their characters are like their children, so I do think most get it right. But yes, it's best to fit a name to a character's age and time. I found it jarring to read about a maid called Jenna working in a big house in the early 20th century in the UK - I see it as a more modern, American name. This was in a novel by Sally Beauman.

byronbay2

ThePinkCage wrote: »

Naming a character is like naming a child - it must be done with thought. For most authors, their characters are like their children, so I do think most get it right. But yes, it's best to fit a name to a character's age and time. I found it jarring to read about a maid called Jenna working in a big house in the early 20th century in the UK - I see it as a more modern, American name. This was in a novel by Sally Beauman.

Funnily enough, I was reading about Thomas Keneally and his daughter Doodle only this morning!

Psychedelic

MagicMarker wrote: »

None of the above is as annoying as 2 characters with the same or very similar name. I mean why? Is the author trying to confuse the reader?

Ever see the ridiculous naming scheme in One Hundred Years of Solitude? I don't even care if the author has a reason for doing it, it's still annoying and needlessly confusing.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/One_Hundred_Years_Of_Solitude.png

andrew369

I have been reading a lot of Dostoevsky recently and don't think I can pronounce even a fraction of the character names correctly :P , still great books though.

Gamayun

Psychedelic wrote: »

Ever see the ridiculous naming scheme in One Hundred Years of Solitude? I don't even care if the author has a reason for doing it, it's still annoying and needlessly confusing.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/One_Hundred_Years_Of_Solitude.png

My copy had a family tree at the front so that you could keep track! At the behest of the publishers perhaps (maybe not)?