Naming Names
Mar. 9th, 2007 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjBecause 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.
Advising people on this topic is a challenge for me, largely because I have strong opinions on "how it should be done" that I recognize aren't always the highest priority for the story as a whole. Usually I fall back on reviewing the nature of the problem with examples of solutions for specific aspects. After all, the idea is to suggest ways in which the questioner can find their own solutions, not try to convince them that there's One True Way, especially given that I'm not in a position to do the work necessary for my own One True Way for other folks. (Examples will pretty much be European, since those are what I can pull out of a hat without much work.)
The mantra that guides my advice is: When writing historically-based fiction, you will always be "translating" significant aspects of the culture you're presenting for the modern reader. You'll be "translating" the language your characters are speaking; you'll be translating their concepts and technical terms; you'll be translating their interpersonal relationships and social structures. So there's no point in insisting that it's essential to avoid "translating" their names to any degree. The question is to what degree, in what manner, and with what level of consistency.
On the "history" side of the equation, character names should have a connection with the historic setting. The ideal is that they should be names actually used in the culture of your story at the time the story is set. This isn’t always entirely possible, but it shouldn’t be violated wantonly. A story set in pre-medieval Ireland shouldn’t be riddled with Seans and Siobhans; a story set in Spain shouldn’t feature Boris and Natasha. Moreover, the names should help shape the reader's understanding of the setting of the story, both in terms of the internal relationships and in terms of setting it apart from the reader's everyday reality. For example, if characters use nicknames, those nicknames should help illustrate their culture’s preoccupations and attitudes.
On "story" side of the equation, character names should clearly identify and distinguish the characters so the reader can tell who is being referred to. They should not give the readers' suspension of disbelief a sharp enough jarring to take them out of the story. And they should not create a stumbling block that trips the reader on a regular basis. As with any other aspect of the setting, the author needs to find a balancing point between introducing "exotic" and unfamiliar elements (ideally historically accurate ones!) and not making the exoticness an overwhelming presence that drowns the story itself.
The details are often more crucial to this than the core elements. A good example of this is the treatment of inflections in names from highly-inflected languages. You'll often hear the complaint that "all those grammatical endings make the names all sound alike." (Amusingly, this complaint never seems to get leveled at stories where all the female names end in originally-Latin "a".) So one common and very practical approach is to chop off inflectional endings entirely, simulating the absorption of Latin names into English (before those silly people went back and re-attached all the feminine "a"s as an affectation). In fact, you will commonly see this done for classical Roman names (Mark Anthony rather than Marcus Antonius), although often irregularly. I’ve been amused to notice that Italian-language novels with classical Roman settings are far more likely to use the modern Italian versions of names than the original Latin versions.
An aspect of naming that is semantically "invisible" in its own culture, can become visually overwhelming to a reader to whom all parts of the names are equally foreign. All the "ap"s in Welsh names are just background noise in their own context, but can end up feeling like a running joke to someone not used to them. Sometimes “translating” this type of name element makes it less intrusive.
Translation of name elements with literal meaning can also be important to letting the reader experience their impact in context. Nicknames – to bring back the obvious example – derive their impact from meaning. If the reader encounters nicknames in untranslated form (where translation includes commentary on the meaning within the story), then they’re simply abstract labels. In contrast, given names (first names) typically are understood as abstract labels within a culture, even when they have a transparent meaning to the hearer. When you hear the name “George” you don’t think “agricultural worker” because the meaning isn’t transparent. But when you hear the name “Taylor” you generally don’t think “garment maker” even though the meaning is transparent. And looking from the story-structure aspect, the use of literal translations of name elements signals a particular authorial point of view towards a particular type of culture. If you identify your heroine as “She-who-intoxicates” rather than as “Maeve” it can distort more than it illuminates about how names were viewed and used in the culture of your work. On the positive side, “translating” aspects of names in familiar ways can shape the reader’s attitude in ways that strictly history usage won’t. If your medieval Welsh hero Dafydd is being addressed familiarly by his best friend, the nature of their relationship may be better served by the modern English “Davy” than by a more historically accurate “Deicyn”. (Or it may not be – no hard and fast rules.)
Another aspect of translation is translation through time. This is part of what’s going on with the “Marcus Antonius > Mark Anthony” issue. It needn’t apply only to using common modern forms of historic names – it can apply to using one historic form in place of another, less accessible, one. Here’s an example that’s easy for me to give because I had to work through it for someone. There’s an early medieval saint popular in Scotland most commonly known as “Kentigern”. Historic evidence places him around the 6th century, but the earliest surviving written records mentioning him date no earlier than the 12th century. The name survived in use elsewhere (i.e., Wales) until even later than that. If the saint’s name had been recorded at the time he (presumably) was alive (at which time it would have been written in Latin), it most likely would have looked something like “Cunotigernus”. The familiar form “Kentigern” is the normal, expected form in use in the 12th century – the date of those earliest surviving written records. But if the name continued evolving to the present day, the standard (Welsh) form would be “Cyndeyrn”. So if you’re writing a novel about the 6th century saint, what name do you give him in your text? And why? What do you lose by that choice, and what are you prioritizing as important?
Simple logistics are also going to play a part in how a writer approaches character names. Writers of historic fiction -- however much they immerse themselves in the subject of their work – are not going to be experts in every detail they write about. And sometimes the information simply isn’t there to know. When I set out to write a historic romance set in 1st century Britain, I needed to name about a dozen women of the Coritani tribe … and that’s a dozen more Coritanian female names than we know anything about. For many pre-modern cultures, the easily accessible information on names is restricted to particular classes (i.e., the ruling class), particular social contexts (formal), and is skewed largely towards male names. The novelist isn’t free simply to record the patchy bits that we know – she has to name the peasants tilling the fields, the kids running around in the road, and the mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives as well as the men. And in many cases that will require making-up or borrowing names to fill in the gaps. So even with the best intentions in the world, strict historic accuracy can’t always be the goal. (And when it is, it can be a heck of a lot of work.)
Well, that feels like enough ruminations for the moment. Maybe more later if there’s commentary.
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.
Advising people on this topic is a challenge for me, largely because I have strong opinions on "how it should be done" that I recognize aren't always the highest priority for the story as a whole. Usually I fall back on reviewing the nature of the problem with examples of solutions for specific aspects. After all, the idea is to suggest ways in which the questioner can find their own solutions, not try to convince them that there's One True Way, especially given that I'm not in a position to do the work necessary for my own One True Way for other folks. (Examples will pretty much be European, since those are what I can pull out of a hat without much work.)
The mantra that guides my advice is: When writing historically-based fiction, you will always be "translating" significant aspects of the culture you're presenting for the modern reader. You'll be "translating" the language your characters are speaking; you'll be translating their concepts and technical terms; you'll be translating their interpersonal relationships and social structures. So there's no point in insisting that it's essential to avoid "translating" their names to any degree. The question is to what degree, in what manner, and with what level of consistency.
On the "history" side of the equation, character names should have a connection with the historic setting. The ideal is that they should be names actually used in the culture of your story at the time the story is set. This isn’t always entirely possible, but it shouldn’t be violated wantonly. A story set in pre-medieval Ireland shouldn’t be riddled with Seans and Siobhans; a story set in Spain shouldn’t feature Boris and Natasha. Moreover, the names should help shape the reader's understanding of the setting of the story, both in terms of the internal relationships and in terms of setting it apart from the reader's everyday reality. For example, if characters use nicknames, those nicknames should help illustrate their culture’s preoccupations and attitudes.
On "story" side of the equation, character names should clearly identify and distinguish the characters so the reader can tell who is being referred to. They should not give the readers' suspension of disbelief a sharp enough jarring to take them out of the story. And they should not create a stumbling block that trips the reader on a regular basis. As with any other aspect of the setting, the author needs to find a balancing point between introducing "exotic" and unfamiliar elements (ideally historically accurate ones!) and not making the exoticness an overwhelming presence that drowns the story itself.
The details are often more crucial to this than the core elements. A good example of this is the treatment of inflections in names from highly-inflected languages. You'll often hear the complaint that "all those grammatical endings make the names all sound alike." (Amusingly, this complaint never seems to get leveled at stories where all the female names end in originally-Latin "a".) So one common and very practical approach is to chop off inflectional endings entirely, simulating the absorption of Latin names into English (before those silly people went back and re-attached all the feminine "a"s as an affectation). In fact, you will commonly see this done for classical Roman names (Mark Anthony rather than Marcus Antonius), although often irregularly. I’ve been amused to notice that Italian-language novels with classical Roman settings are far more likely to use the modern Italian versions of names than the original Latin versions.
An aspect of naming that is semantically "invisible" in its own culture, can become visually overwhelming to a reader to whom all parts of the names are equally foreign. All the "ap"s in Welsh names are just background noise in their own context, but can end up feeling like a running joke to someone not used to them. Sometimes “translating” this type of name element makes it less intrusive.
Translation of name elements with literal meaning can also be important to letting the reader experience their impact in context. Nicknames – to bring back the obvious example – derive their impact from meaning. If the reader encounters nicknames in untranslated form (where translation includes commentary on the meaning within the story), then they’re simply abstract labels. In contrast, given names (first names) typically are understood as abstract labels within a culture, even when they have a transparent meaning to the hearer. When you hear the name “George” you don’t think “agricultural worker” because the meaning isn’t transparent. But when you hear the name “Taylor” you generally don’t think “garment maker” even though the meaning is transparent. And looking from the story-structure aspect, the use of literal translations of name elements signals a particular authorial point of view towards a particular type of culture. If you identify your heroine as “She-who-intoxicates” rather than as “Maeve” it can distort more than it illuminates about how names were viewed and used in the culture of your work. On the positive side, “translating” aspects of names in familiar ways can shape the reader’s attitude in ways that strictly history usage won’t. If your medieval Welsh hero Dafydd is being addressed familiarly by his best friend, the nature of their relationship may be better served by the modern English “Davy” than by a more historically accurate “Deicyn”. (Or it may not be – no hard and fast rules.)
Another aspect of translation is translation through time. This is part of what’s going on with the “Marcus Antonius > Mark Anthony” issue. It needn’t apply only to using common modern forms of historic names – it can apply to using one historic form in place of another, less accessible, one. Here’s an example that’s easy for me to give because I had to work through it for someone. There’s an early medieval saint popular in Scotland most commonly known as “Kentigern”. Historic evidence places him around the 6th century, but the earliest surviving written records mentioning him date no earlier than the 12th century. The name survived in use elsewhere (i.e., Wales) until even later than that. If the saint’s name had been recorded at the time he (presumably) was alive (at which time it would have been written in Latin), it most likely would have looked something like “Cunotigernus”. The familiar form “Kentigern” is the normal, expected form in use in the 12th century – the date of those earliest surviving written records. But if the name continued evolving to the present day, the standard (Welsh) form would be “Cyndeyrn”. So if you’re writing a novel about the 6th century saint, what name do you give him in your text? And why? What do you lose by that choice, and what are you prioritizing as important?
Simple logistics are also going to play a part in how a writer approaches character names. Writers of historic fiction -- however much they immerse themselves in the subject of their work – are not going to be experts in every detail they write about. And sometimes the information simply isn’t there to know. When I set out to write a historic romance set in 1st century Britain, I needed to name about a dozen women of the Coritani tribe … and that’s a dozen more Coritanian female names than we know anything about. For many pre-modern cultures, the easily accessible information on names is restricted to particular classes (i.e., the ruling class), particular social contexts (formal), and is skewed largely towards male names. The novelist isn’t free simply to record the patchy bits that we know – she has to name the peasants tilling the fields, the kids running around in the road, and the mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives as well as the men. And in many cases that will require making-up or borrowing names to fill in the gaps. So even with the best intentions in the world, strict historic accuracy can’t always be the goal. (And when it is, it can be a heck of a lot of work.)
Well, that feels like enough ruminations for the moment. Maybe more later if there’s commentary.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-09 09:48 pm (UTC)For me, with a strong background in names, if not in history more general, nothing can ruin a story for me more than an incorrect name! For example, Edith Pattou's North Child is an absolutely *wonderful* book -- except for the 16th C Norwegian girl named . *shudder*
The funny thing is, is that my work in names has rubbed off on my mom (a children's librarian) -- she says she even can pick up now when the names aren't "right".
Something which has bothered me quite a bit in the last few years is names in movies. People who write generic-get-'em-in-theatre movies don't seem to have any real conception of what types of names are actually in use nowadays (which is when their movies are usually set). One example which has always stuck with me is the character named Dorothy in Jerry Maguire. In the mid-90's, how many 20-something American girls did you know named Dorothy? I bet the answer is none... I find that this can be even more jarring than a historical novel with ahistorical names, because sometimes (for much the reasons you note) it's difficult for an author to know what names are historically accurate for the period and culture they are writing about. But it shouldn't be hard for someone writing a movie about late 20th-century America to find out what types of names are appropriate! The sheer lack of effort that such discrepancies display is what bothers me the most.
Interesting ruminations!
no subject
Date: 2007-03-09 09:52 pm (UTC)Young Dorothy
Date: 2007-03-10 12:25 am (UTC)Characters in modern settings who must have been born (and so named) before their new-fangled names first came into use, on the other hand...
Re: Young Dorothy
Date: 2007-03-10 04:22 am (UTC)Re: Young Dorothy
Date: 2007-03-10 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 05:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 09:03 pm (UTC)A lot of authors don't make any conscious decisions about this because it simply doesn't occur to them that our modern model of given names plus fixed, inherited family surname is not how names worked in every culture throughout all of time, never mind actually thought about what is the best way to represent that different historical use of names in the time/place of their setting to their modern readers for the purposes of their story.
The one that particularly annoys me in this regard are the authors who go to all the work of figuring out Gaelic names for their Scottish Highland characters, but then use them as if their Gaelic "mac X" surnames were inherited family surnames (indicating clan affiliation, of course!) instead of literal indications of who Dad was. It's even worse when they use "mac" for the women's surnames, too -- and, worse still, give husbands and wives the same surname (ugh!)
Of course, readers make the same assumptions about how names work, which is why an author who does know that Scottish Gaelic patronymic surnames were literal and also chooses to use Gaelic forms of names might be better off literally translating the "son of" and "daughter of" parts, to let "the reader experience their impact in context", rather than risking the readers getting confused or, worse, dropped out of their suspension of disbelief, by the son of "Domhnall mac Aoidh" being called "Eoin mac Domhnaill" rather than "Eoin mac Aoidh" as expected. Calling them "Domhnall son of Aodh" and "Eoin son of Domhnall" may both make it easier for the reader to follow and allow the reader to experience the names with the meaning the characters would have assigned them -- as well as allow the author to have them belong to Clann Leoid without that being another point of potential confusion (and likewise without risking readers generally making erroneous assumptions about the clan affiliation of every character named based on their surname due to their modern expectations).
Mind you, all that said, it doesn't bother me at all if an author uses names fully in Gaelic as they were used historically in Gaelic --that's a legitimate approach-- it's just the ones who use names in Gaelic for historical characters as if they were 21st century names in English that irritate me (and drop me out of my suspension of disbelief as fast as a "Fiona" before 1894 ;-)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 04:53 pm (UTC)