You Name It : Ginn Hale
We are delighted to welcome back Ginn Hale.❤ Ginn, as you may or may not know, has agreed to share a post with us every now and then – on anything she wants to share! I honestly think her shopping list would be good to read! Enjoy!
The bard once pondered, “What’s in a name…” and he wasn’t the only author to do so. In fact I know a number of quite talented writers who will spend days—yes, entire days—doing nothing but searching for just the right names, for characters, titles and places, before they commit to a rough outline of their plots or even a single sentence of prose. (Not to mention going out to coffee with me—hence my motivation to help out.)
My friendly suggestions of, “how about what’s-his-name” or “that-one-place” are met with coffee-curdling scorn. As are my suggestions for random words and names I happen to notice. Altoid, Pinster, Fabriano, and Clorox—along with many, many others are nearly always rejected. Too random, too weird, too obviously a cleaning product.
Then I whip open the baby name books. I read out suggestions and encounter positive and negative responses that seem to me, utterly mystifying. Why did “Martin” garner an expression of contempt while “Ewan” inspired a thoughtful pause? “Walter” couldn’t have been more offensive than a ripping fart but inexplicably “Harry” is golden.
Depending upon the writer and the book these examples can be reversed or even altered to fantastic variations. Martimus falls before the might of Ewandeolin, and so on.
But being the sort of author who often works out her plot and setting with placeholder names like—Beard-O, The Stink and that most romantic of monikers “POV”— I’m often confounded by the importance of names in the creation of characters or whole worlds.
I have in fact found myself quoting:
“That which we call rose
By any other name would smell as sweet…”
But would it really?
There is now a fair bit a scientific research that has shown that it wouldn’t. Several studies have found that the actual experience—not just the perception—of pleasure and pain can be altered greatly by a person’s state of mind.
For example, a group of people might be served two glasses of the exact same drink and be informed that one is a cheap knock-off of the other. They sample the drinks and amazingly experience different responses in the pleasure centers of their brains depending upon whether they think—just think—that the drink is the superior or inferior sample. They aren’t just imagining that one tastes better; they’re actually experiencing a more enjoyable drink.
(For a great discussion of this phenomena check out Paul Bloom’s TED talk The Origins of Pleasure.)
With that in mind I find myself returning to all the associations and meanings that names can evoke. So while Ewan and Martin seem much the same to me at first, a few moments of thought and investigation proves them to represent quite different qualities.
Martin is nearly as common as a surname as it is a given name and relates to Mars (or Martinus) and is associated with the god of war. It’s also and anglicized version of the name of a proto-celtic tribe: Mairtine. And depending on who you are it might bring to mind the religious leader Marin Luther or the civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
Personally when I hear Martin, I think of Martens, those clever wily little creatures.
Ewan is a common given name in Scotland, means born of the yew tree—which is itself poison but also associated with churches and archery. Then name also conjures up associations with the Scottish god of the glen. The Welsh version of the name is Owen but the Gaelic Euan conveys an entirely different meaning: Red Faced.
Of course being the age and demographic I am, the name Ewan makes me think first of Ewan McGregor.
So obviously the two names –while both common and of European derivation—are not the same. Martin and Ewan might live in the same world but they aren’t interchangeable fellows. Even Ewan and Euan aren’t the same, (Though they could be in the same family). One a god of ancient woods the other a crimson facer blusterer.
And that was when I realized that my fellow authors weren’t just naming a couple characters or places. They were bestowing the inherent qualities of particular names upon their fictional beings and lands. The names have to be perfect because in a way the names are often an encapsulation of the character or kingdom.
That’s not to say that sometimes an author might not want to play against characterization. After all, it sort of gives the game away if all the baddies have evil names like Killingham, Fowler and Mr. Murderer. Not to mention dead giveaways like Vader—meaning Father, or Lupin—a flower, yes but also very much associated with Lupus or Wolf.
So it is indeed a fine line… One I’m going to have to think a bit more about perhaps. If only to avoid writing my next book about dashing young Altoid Clorox and his rivalry with the brooding Lord What-his-Name.
A bit about Ginn :
Ginn Hale lives in the Pacific Northwest, donates blood as a pastime, and tinkers with things.
For a chance to win an e-copy of ANY book from Ginn’s back catalogue all you need to do is comment …. but …. we want a character from any m/m book in each subsequent letter of the alphabet – I kicked it off with the letter A now the next person needs to give me a B, etc etc. Competition closes when we hit Zane, (if only 😛 ) I mean the letter Z. Have fun, and Good Luck!!
this is soooo interesting!! I can not tell you how many characters I fall in love with that have what I call the “J-effect” – Jake and Jacob are definitely tops *snort* 🙂 but Evan and Ethan too. So yes – names seem to click with me for whatever reason!
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I read too much into names. Well, I read too much into everything, names included.
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to make it even moooore interesting…. one lucky commenter can pick any e-book from Ginn’s back catalogue what we want to know is a character from each letter of the alphabet – let’s work from A-Z with characters only in the m/m genre ….
I am going to kick it off with A (obviously) and the my character is…. Adrien-with-an-e from Josh Lanyon’s “Adrien English Mysteries” 🙂
Who is next? gimme a B…
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Boone Daniels! From Ethan Day’s Sno Ho and Life in Fusion.
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hmmm C…. tri-C-ky 😛 did you C what I did there?? can anyone think of C-character (and no I did not stutter then)
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Cole from Rhys Ford’s Dirty series and Cole from Strawberries for Dessert by Marie Sexton.
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Cthulu? Ha, I kid… Cage from According to Hoyle by Abigail Roux! (I don’t need to be in the drawing, I just like playing games.)
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Crawford – from Amy Lane’s Granby Knitting Series.
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Just as an aside, that is a super cute picture of Ewan! I’m sure he’d be just as adorable if named Altiod Clorox. 😀
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maybe Altiod McClorox 😛
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I just read a post on Facebook from an author who was puzzled by a reviewer criticising her character names for not being right for their ethnicity. Personally, I agree with the author because it’s very common these days for names to be drawn from a wide variety of countries and cultures. For instance my two youngest sisters are Chinese/Hungarian yet their names are Russian and French, so I’m used to not necessarily associating names to an ethnicity. It’s interesting how a name can effect a reader’s perception of the character, though.
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annnnd a D? anyone got a D?
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I’ve got a D. There was David in Finding Zach by Rowan Speedwell. I love that book.
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Ha! I nearly went David Bradley 🙂
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Ahh Kim, I love that book too. Recently listened to the audio which I loved as well 🙂 (No Bradleys allowed Barb!!)
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Bbbbbut!!!
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No no no 🙂
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Heh!
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Since I’m in the middle of re-reading Sue Browns Lyon Road Vets series to be ready for the new one coming, I’ll say E for Evan Wells the hunky vet.
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F…. for….. ??
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Franklin–Lord Cornelius Franklin of Langley Hyde’s Highfell Grimoires! (I can’t believe I didn’t come up with that one for “C”–lol)
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Good one Nicole! I think of him as Neil though!
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G is for Grif…. how many Grifs feature in Josh Lanyon’s books? And so to H….
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So many great Griffins… Hey, can’t forget Whyborne’s main squeeze too! 🙂
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H is for Hilary Kent (and yes he is a man) from Julie Bozza’s Apothecary’s Garden.
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gaycrow you are the lucky winner drawn out of the hat!! I will be posting the winners selection of books in a mo…. thanks for commenting!!
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I’ve got I. Isaiah Trujillo from Bailey Bradford’s book Isaiah (book 4 of the Leopard Spot series).
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J is for Javier ♥
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And Jae! And Jactor! And Jake! And Jathibaye! Which means K is for Kyle 🙂
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Oh and Jacin from Wolf’s Own by Carol Cummings. Love that series,too! J is anlong list.
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J is definitely a good letter 🙂
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Just saw Whit snuck Kyle in with Jathibaye 🙂 my ocd can rest. Kinda.
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Don’t forget Jory!
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L is for Luki 🙂
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And Logan. Can’t wait for that book! It’s going to hurt so good!
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Umm… what about K? 😛
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M is for Mac from the Degrees books or Malick from Wolf’s Own.
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And for Murdo, from Joanna Chambers’ Enlightenment series ❤
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And Mark from Kate Sherwood’s latest
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Yes! I could do this all day! 🙂
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N is for Nighty night! 😀 And Nick from Nicole Kimberling’s Bellingham series 🙂
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ha! 🙂 So cute!
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Ollie from Josephine Myles’ Handle with Care!
Wait! I’m not competing–dang it!
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P…Peter from Megan Derr’s Midsummer’s Moon. It’s what I am reading at the moment.
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Quinn Morgan from the Sinner’s Gin Series! He doesn’t have his own book yet, but I’m hopeful!
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And Qhuay from the Black Dagger Brotherhood 💓
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Agent Rake from Green Glass Beads from the Irregulars anthology.
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So many S names! Sam Kage (Matter of Time Series) Sonny James (Vasquez & James) I’m sure I could go on and on!
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Awesome stuff about names! there are names that really are off-putting for no apparent reason other than that they remind one of something unpleasant. Ginn’s musings brought back a lovely memory though, i think i was about 4 or 5 and i was asking my uncle to come up with a name for a doll and he kept coming up with “Altoid Clorox” type names…hours of fun.
An S name…Sam from Josh’s A Ghost of a Chance. 🙂
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I’m constantly coming up with terrible names or worse nicknames, particularly for characters in movies. I still remember the evening that I renamed most of the characters in the wretched movie Van Smellsing–Errrr VanHelsing! 😀
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Oh, there’s an S already. Then, Tucker from Fair Game.
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And Ty, don’t forget Ty. And Taylor!
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U… Hard one. I have another way of looking at this. In Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea’s book One Small Thing – One of the MC names is Rue but his best friend calls him Underoo. And there we have U… 🙂
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U b clever 💋
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V can only be Victor from the PsyCop series! ! And so onto W….
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W is for Wes from My Summer of Wes
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We’re almost there! This is awesome!
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You know I must mention Whyborne….. *runs away grinning*
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X is for Xavier. … surely there is one, somewhere? ? Or it can be for all of the sweet, sweet kisses xxxxx or in fact the X rated content in some of the books we read. 😀
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The X in JX from Holmes & Moriarty is Xavier . 😉
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Y…. Yves? Yummy men? Yowzer!!!! Yikes! YES!!! Some of the Y-words I know I have thought 😆 any other suggestions?
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Z is for Zane Garrett. One of my absolute favourite characters out there in one of the best series – Cut & Run. It also represents Zzzzzzzzzz (or the lack therof) as we all have lost out on a fair bit of sleep over the years as we finish just one more chapter. No seriously, just one more. For realzzzz 😉
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this competition is now closed… thanks to everyone for stopping by and commenting! and keep an eye on the cafepress site – a LYLBTB Fictional Floozie tote bag may just be appearing on the shelves … thanks to all of YOU!! 🙂
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I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was great.
I don’t know who you are but certainly you’re going to a famous
blogger if you aren’t already 😉 Cheers!
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