Martin Livings

I’ve used Alvan Roy as a character in a heap of stories and novels, including Carnies. The name came from opposing street signs near Robin Pen’s old place in Mt Lawley.

Grant Watson

My play Serpentine had a character named Anthony Grey who thought he was the devil. The name was based on a famous quote by William Temple, whose response to the oft-quoted line from Isaiah, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow,” was to say, “All my sins are grey.” That’s probably my favourite.

Sean Williams

God, there are too many names. I lie awake at night, terrified of repeating them! Actually, I don’t lie awake at night at all (over this), but I have sometimes repeated them unintentionally in first drafts (thank the Squid for Google Desktop, otherwise I’d have no hope of knowing) and changed them for fear of looking like I’m tapped out.

I have a character in my MonkeyBrain novella Cenotaxis called Alice-Angeles. I like her name a lot.

Nick Evans

P.G. Wodehouse has my all of my favourite character names ever, I think — Gussy Fink-Nottle, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, Psmith…

Chris Lawson

Leon Shy-Drager from “Unborn Again” and Jeremiah Bedlam from A Random Walk (in development hell).

Margo Lanagan

I am currently enjoying a character whose name is Teasel Wurledge. He turns into a bear, and then back again into a man. And he’s not a pleasant character…

Probably the most fun I’ve got out of character names were the four elves in “Midsummer Mission” in White Time, whose names were stolen from a Christmas cracker box: Cap, Snap, Motto and Trinket. I ended up having to change Cap to Hat, because USians kept thinking Cap meant Captain, whereas Motto was the head of the group, but I like the original set best.

Shane Dix

Okay, well this will probably sound completely ridiculous, I’m sure, but you did ask…Rebus Ampersand. It’s from a work in progress, and with a name like that, may very well remain as such…

Stephen Dedman

Some favourite character names:

Aisha: I love names that have different meanings in different languages; this means “woman” in Arabic (also the name of one of Mohammed’s wives), “life” in Swahili, and ”manipulating an overly sympathetic or soft-hearted person” in Japanese.

Anagnostakos: I like non-Anglo names, and I saw this on the cover of one of Elaine’s nursing texts. Also, it had a hint of “agnostic.”

Charlie Takumo: from “kumo,” Japanese for “spider.”

Madly Dance: abbreviated/portmanteau’ed “Madeleine Lee,” both names also having Poe-esque associations, a perfect name for a Goth girl to give herself.

Michaelangelo Magistrale: not sure where I heard the name “Magistrale” but it fit the character I wanted to use as the hero of my novel: someone whose name would naturally be abbreviated “Mage.”

Nakatani: a pun on “no katana”, no samurai ancestry.

Pope George Ringo: seemed like the logical successor to the John Pauls.

Tamenaga: another name I swiped from somewhere. Apart from the sound of it, naga is the species name for cobra, and he has a “tame” cobra in the form of a tattoo that can come to life.

Verrill Duplessis: sounded enough like “duplicity” to be ideal for a politician.

Garth Nix

I spend a lot of time on character names (and the names of places, creatures and things). I often say them aloud and go through many different variations and combinations until I get one that sounds right. I often mix up word fragments that are already resonant with meaning, to try and get a name that evokes whatever I am looking for in a name.

‘Sabriel’, for example, I made after trying many variations of the heraldic term for black, which is ’sable’, and the ‘-iel’ and ‘-ael’ endings found in angel’s names. Years later I found a reference to a medieval angel called ’sabrael’ thus confirming that it is very, very difficult to be truly original.

Apart from making up names, I have also resorted to nicking them from Shakespeare (as he did to earlier writers), slightly changing the spelling. My ‘Abhorsen’ comes from the executioner ‘Abhorson’ in MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Again, I was looking for resonance, and had been researching executioners in history and literature, my character being an executioner of sorts.

I suppose overall it is the sound of the name that I look for - the euphony of a name that sounds right. Of recent character names, I am pleased with my Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, the heroes of two long ‘musket and sorcery’ stories, the first one in ‘Jim Baen’s Universe’ last April and a second in Jeff and Ann Vandermeer’s forthcoming FAST SHIPS/BLACK SAILS. I have no idea where my mercenary artillerist’s and sorcerous puppet’s names came from, but they sound right for that duo.

Scott Westerfeld

My favorite micro-system of monickers is Madeleine and Melissa, the two mindcasters in Midnighters. They’re both mad. (Note the “M” theme.) Madeleine passes on a mountain of memories from all previous mindcasters to Melissa, which makes her sort of like the madeleine in Marcel’s book, ‘Membrance of Things Past.

Pretentious, moi?

I also like “Tally Youngblood” from Uglies. Her first name is a common but not overused verb, so MS Word doesn’t make that red squiggle underneath it for a whole frickin’ trilogy; it sounds both familiar and vaguely futuristic. Youngblood is sort of halfway between “Young Turk” and “fresh blood”. So you can tell Tally is going to disrupt the system.

Her boyfriend, David, has the only name in Uglies that sounds normal to us in the present. (Uglies takes place three centuries from now.) Because he grew up in the wild, David’s kind of old-fashioned, like the home-schooled kid whose name is Ezekiel and has never seen a TV show.

Robin Pen

Well, it would have to be my two mates Hampton and Francher. Two slacker buds who do very little but go to movies and have one-sided arguments. Francher is overly critical and enjoys ripping everything he sees into bits. He’s often indignant and feels he’s been slapped in the face by the tawdry standards inflicted upon him. Hampton, on the other hand, just tries to enjoy himself. He can find something to like in everything. He believes you have to go with the flow, whatever it is, and get your maximum dollars worth. They are the best of friends even though they just can’t understand where the other one is coming from. However, both talk a bit about me behind my back, usually about my elitism as I all to often will discuss film trends keeping my true opinions on individual flicks close to my chest. That’s just not cricket from their perspective.

They’ve appeared often in past essays, usually ones I’m in, and starred in their own series of adventures in a volume of Mitch. I like the guys but I haven’t caught up with them much recently.

The names Hampton and Francher are derived from the real person Hampton Fancher, a TV part player in the sixties and seventies, but who wrote the first drafts of Blade Runner (as Dangerous Days) before it was reworked to final draft by David Peoples.

Robert Hood

One of my favourite characters is Cassandra from the “Shades” books. I wanted a name that reflected her fiesty self-confidence and suggested her supernatural nature, and “Cassandra” with its mythic resonance seemed appropriate for a young girl who was dead gorgeous (in both senses), something of a party animal, and had been 16 for over 100 years.

The most unusual name from recent stories is Luxury Harlow. The story in which she features began with the title “Luxury Goods” and centres around a futuristic slang meaning of the word “luxury” to refer to an illegal virtual enhancement technology — a technology that Luxury is eventually associated with in a very direct way. Thus the name has direct narrative significance. The Harlow part carried what seemed an entirely suitable suggestion of Jean Harlow.

The most fun I’ve had with names lately is in the story “Redlight Dead”, which I wrote for Steve Savile’s anthology MONSTER NOIR. The anthology’s noir/50s B-film setting dictated the “feel” of the characters’ names. The main character is a somewhat cyncial (naturally) reporter named Nick Grinder — “Nick” is a name that has a sort of noir ordinariness (for me at least) and “Grinder” came from “coffee grinder”, with a suggestion of abrasiveness in his personality — though ironically Nick sucks used teabags rather than drinking coffee. The fact that the name also suggests an ex-NSW Premier is purely coincidental. But the story has other interesting names as well: Mr Inkman owns the newspaper Nick works for (and turns out to be an animated drawing); the editor is Gag Black (”Black” as an opposite to Superman’s Perry White and Gag because he’s always surrounded by cigarette smoke); Glory is an undead hooker from the Necrophilic Rose brothel, and George is a Giant Ape. I also like “Cafe Freaque” as the name of a trendy nightclub in a monster city and Zuccotown as a fading bordertown — named after George Zucco, the second-tier horror actor, of course.

Other character names I like are: Michael Crowe — a morally compromised private eye from a novel titled “Scavangers”, hence the surname. Lewis Burke — a hack journo from an ongoing series of stories. He’s a bit gormless and at a loss when anything significant happens. Bindy Daymon — a politician from the story “Scrubbed”. It was intended to carry overtones of an iconic Aussieness (albeit prickly) and a suggestion of his demonic origins. Mr Antwhistle — from the story “You’re a Sick Man, Mr Antwhistle”. The titular character might provoke conflict by subtle suggestion for no reason other than to watch the result. He’s a colourless Wellsian character with a vast malevolence lying just below the surface. The idea of a whistle for ants seemed appropriate in this context.

Cat Sparks

I recently gave one of my characters the name Nadira, based on the surname of a friend, Ndaira. I wanted a name that was pretty, yet suggested the possibility of hidden strength. My friend is a kickboxer, so perhaps that’s where I was coming from there.

Other than favouring female names beginning with ‘A’ (Amadina, Ardena, Arnika), there’s not much clever or interesting about the names I choose. For surnames, I tend to pull out the Wollongong phone directory and skim through it till something takes my fancy.

Richard Harland is particularly good at euphonic, yet uncomfortable character names with a dark, Victorian edge to them. His novel The Black Crusade features the imprisoned songbird Volusia alongside Raveena Fike, Ingel Brankel, Reverend Squench, Horace Cull, Fliss, and Basil Smorta. Juggernaut, a work in progress, contains the delightful Sir Mormus Porpentine and his wife Ebnolia, a servant called Wicky Popo, The Honourable Hommelia Turbot, ” a large florid woman in a billowing flowery dress”, Mrs Postlefrith, Mrs Barramough, Mr Twillip, Quinnea, Gillabeth and Riff.

Bonus commentary from Sean Williams:

Getting a name that sounds like right, looks right on the page, and has an extra layer (be it a pun on something relevant, a mythological reference, or even just a personal hook that only the author would know about–because names always have to be more than just letters on a page) is vital. Names also have to fit the world on offer, because there’s nothing weirder than Lord Derek of Mordor or Captain Ffkrlgggjm the Unpronounceable. I think we start off lifting names from stories we’ve loved (I did this as a kid, using names of secondary characters from Dr Who), then we angle for things that seem exotic to us but are actually just awkward. Eventually, if we keep our eyes open (and read outside the Star Wars/Star Trek bookshelf) we start to get a feel for what kind of names real people (or real aliens) might use every day. I don’t think I always get it right, but I do put a lot of work into it. (One day I’ll take a month off and create a cast listing for all my books, because I’d be curious to see it myself, but that’s a job for less busy times.)

Oh, and exactly the same thing applies to place names, spaceship names, weapon names, jargon, etc etc etc etc. One of the great things about writing SF is the ability to create neologisms, but it has to be done with care.

I’m very curious to see what other writers have to say on this topic.

Stage Noise has a podcast interview with our own Sean Williams and then Jeff Wayne, the creator of the War of the Worlds musical. Although the interviews were recorded separately, this is a serendipitous juxtaposition. I know for a fact that Sean Williams is a big fan of Wayne’s WotW and I suspect he could recite the guitar tabs if only someone were to get him drunk enough.

I wouldn’t normally quote at such length, but this letter to Norman Geras is too glorious to truncate.

Norm, I was surprised not to see a comment on your blog about the furore surrounding the knighthood awarded to Sir Ian Botham.

I understand that the British High Commissioner was called in by the government in Canberra and given a dressing down for the way in which the Queen has insulted the Australian people by her provocative act. Sources close to the Australian government say that it is quite clear that the Queen’s intention in awarding a public honour of this kind to the superannuated sports star was simply to provide an excuse for the British media to replay TV footage of the 1981 Headingly Test, thereby humiliating Australians by reminding them of how they suffered at the hands of the English. Further, sources said that instead of taking the opportunity to honour Ricky Ponting and his team for their outstanding performances in the recent Ashes series, the Queen has impugned the sporting prowess of Australian men and insulted the whole Australian nation. Consequently, the Australian government is calling on Australians everywhere to go into English pubs and pour beer over anyone who dares to mention the name “Botham”.

The British government has yet to comment officially on these reports. However, Shirley Williams was quoted as saying that the Australian government did seem to have a point, and although she had never really understood cricket it didn’t seem right to upset people over a game that happened a long time ago. Will Self was reported to have said that since Ian Botham was a controversial figure in cricket, it was not obvious why he accepted the knighthood anyway.

Do you have any views on this breaking story?

The Wall Street Journal has a rather disturbing article about naming babies. The pressure that some people put upon themselves is frankly incomprehensible. All parents agonise over names a little, but it’s hard to be sympathetic to parents who hire consultants to brand their children as if their future lives can be reduced to products competing for supermarket shelf space.

Last fall, John Bentham, 36, a Las Vegas theater producer, and his wife, Shannon, 29, who runs a nonprofit foundation, says they felt “enormous pressure” to find a strong-sounding boy name. “I wanted a name that would look good on a marquee or a political banner,” Mrs. Bentham says. Though they had agreed on the letter “j,” none of the names they came up with — Jude, Julian, Jake, Jason, or John Jr. — seemed original enough. They hired Ms. Walker and Mr. Reyes, who produced an 11-page list of possibilities, including Jackson. In March, the Benthams welcomed little Jackson Dean into the world.

How can a parent put so much effort into a first name without knowing the slightest thing about the pedigree of the name Bentham itself? You could call the kid just about anything and it would look impressive on a political banner. The Benthams might have considered Jeremy, for instance. It even starts with a J.

I have to admit I do agonise over names. But not for my children — my wife and I had little difficulty in drawing up with a shortlist and then coming to agreement over them. Here’s some quick rules for confused parents: 1. choose a name you’ve heard before, not some random concatenation of power phonemes or a Biblical name drawn from an obscure chain of begats; 2. don’t use a weird spelling; stick to common variations; 3. only use an odd or obscure name if there is a family tradition or some philosophical purpose behind it, and in that instance give the poor child the haven of an unobtrusive second name; 4. make sure there aren’t any unfortunate associations, slang words, or dissonances created by any combination of shortenings, initials, or Spoonerisms (e.g., Shiloh Pitt). That’s it. Who needs a consultant?

What I agonise over is character names. They are difficult to get right. They have to be memorable without being ridiculous (unless you’re writing melodrama or parody) and ideally they give some clue to character without being flashing neon signs. As such I have two baby name books in my reference collection and I often search baby name sites, and for surnames there’s always the phone book. I don’t have a standard method of selecting character names. The Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager is exceptionally good for names in historical context, with the proviso that it only goes back to 1880 and only applies to the US.

It may seem odd to be fixated on fictional names when the names of my children caused so little angst. But, you see, a fictional name is tied to a fictional character. Children, on the other hand, are real people with their own personalities and it is not in my power — nor would I want it to be in my power — to dictate their characters. The purpose of a child’s name is to be an identifying sigil and to be reasonably euphonious. That’s all. Fictional characters, on the other hand, are in my power, and a good name is part of the package. Captain Ahab and Queequeg, Yossarian, Ebenezer Scrooge and Josaiah Bounderby, Mowgli and Shere Khan, are all fictional characters whom it is impossible to imagine separated from the names created for them by their authors.

On the other hand, ruminating too much over character names is one of those awful self-distraction techniques beloved of writers. It probably doesn’t matter if your heroine is called Jane or Jemma. What makes Elizabeth Bennet one of the most endearing characters in English literature is her personality, not her milk-and-water name.

Bill Congreve (MirrorDanse Books) chats to Gary Kemble at Articulate about the state of Australian genre publishing.

Indie publishers often have a product which won’t work given the limitations of the marketplace. There is often a lack of understanding [about] how the industry works. The best training to be a small press publisher isn’t being a successful writer, it’s being a succesful bookshop manager.

The 2007 Ditmar results can be found at HorrorScope — it’s an excellent list, by the way, and well worth your time to seek out the winning works, artists, and authors.

(more…)

Sean Williams talks to Gary Kemble:

When I first tried my hand at fantasy, I thought I was doomed because I couldn’t describe the sort of landscapes you find in The Lord of the Rings and similar novels: the snow-capped mountains, the wide rivers, the forests. I’ve never seen anything like this, having grown up mainly along the line stretching down the middle of Australia, from Darwin to Adelaide. It eventually occurred to me that fantasy could be set in such landscapes just easily as anywhere else; all I had to do was let go of my preconceptions and make it happen.

Shaun Tan’s The Arrival continues to confound genre definitions — a wordless 128-page graphic novel that retells the journey of Tan’s father to Australia in an entirely reimagined setting inhabited by strange creatures and half-recognizable social customs. It has been published as a children’s book because that’s where picture books get placed in the publishing industry but it’s clearly not for children (although there’s nothing in it to stop children enjoying it). It’s a fantasy book or maybe a science fiction book that happens to be drawn within the realist tradition. Although the objects, the statues, the local flora and fauna are all alien to anything that has ever existed on Earth, it is still a palpable version of our world.

The Arrival may confuse marketing departments, but it keeps winning awards. This time it’s the NSW Premier’s Literary Award in two categories including Book of the Year.

Buy. This. Book.