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Naming Names
Mar. 9th, 2007 01:37 pmBecause I don’t want to keep angsting over whether the trip is going to come off or not (probably not), I shall ruminate on …
Names in Historically-based Fiction
Because I have a number of articles on historic names and naming practices up on the web, I regularly (if not necessarily frequently) get contacted by people who are writing (or, in the majority of cases, have plans of writing) novels with historic settings who are looking for advice or help in naming their characters. At the moment, I'm leaving out people writing fantasy who are using historic cultures as a jumping-off inspiration point -- that creates an entirely different set of problems, opportunities, and considerations. And for the most part I don't get questions about relatively modern settings (i.e., the last half millennium or so). So the considerations tend to evolve out of the context of cultures for which the data is spotty (if available at all), inaccessible to the general public (either for reasons of how/where it is published or how it is presented), not only involves understanding changes in the available name pool but consideration of changes in languages, spellings, and writing systems, and brings in conflicting demands of accuracy, effective communication/story-telling, and both author and audience preconception. ( And this is going to go on for a bit, so I'd better put it behind a cut. )
Names in Historically-based Fiction
Because I have a number of articles on historic names and naming practices up on the web, I regularly (if not necessarily frequently) get contacted by people who are writing (or, in the majority of cases, have plans of writing) novels with historic settings who are looking for advice or help in naming their characters. At the moment, I'm leaving out people writing fantasy who are using historic cultures as a jumping-off inspiration point -- that creates an entirely different set of problems, opportunities, and considerations. And for the most part I don't get questions about relatively modern settings (i.e., the last half millennium or so). So the considerations tend to evolve out of the context of cultures for which the data is spotty (if available at all), inaccessible to the general public (either for reasons of how/where it is published or how it is presented), not only involves understanding changes in the available name pool but consideration of changes in languages, spellings, and writing systems, and brings in conflicting demands of accuracy, effective communication/story-telling, and both author and audience preconception. ( And this is going to go on for a bit, so I'd better put it behind a cut. )
