the naming of cats is a difficult matter

[truepenny]

117,336 / 174,600 (67.0%)

Finished with Chapter 8 just before bed last night. Names this time. Normally, I don't have any trouble with names--at least, not in the sense of not being able to come up with them. As matociquala can attest, I do have prima donna tendencies in the other direction and will refuse to be mollified if the names are incorrect. But Chapter 8 seems to have been a rough patch, onomatologically speaking.

Le Guin's system of magic has always made sense to me, that if you know something's true name, you have power over it. I do a lot of world-building with the names I pick, and one thing guaranteed to throw me out of any book is evidence that the author has a tin ear for names and their meanings. Too many fantasy authors seem to make up names by picking Scrabble tiles out of a hat--and, what's worse, to combine that with an unsystematic scavenging from naming conventions in various real-world cultures (mostly western European).

The names in Mélusine are a mélange of (depending on culture) English, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, German, and Russian, and the people of the city of Mélusine itself have a tendency to appropriate common nouns as parts of names (a madwoman in the first book is named Jeanne-Chatte; a theater impresario in the third is named Jean-Soleil). But there is method to my madness, and I can actually explain what a given character's name says about his or her ethnic and cultural heritage. It matters that of two wizards from the same country, one is named Thaddeus de Lalage, and the other is named Gideon Thraxios.

I inclue with names. Hell, I obsess about names. If I get the name right, the rest of the character tends to follow. If I get the name wrong, we ain't going nowhere and ain't nobody happy.

Comments

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I too am an onomastics nerd. Nothing turns me off a novel faster than characters with unnecessary apostrophes in their names. (Necessary ones I tolerate, with difficulty.) Whereas, systematic naming, as part of a total verbal landscape (dialect, forms of address, etc.), is some of the best scenery-setting a writer can do for me.

[menin-aeide.livejournal.com]

a madwoman in the first book is named Jeanne-Chatte

Myself, I always found it amusing that Jean-Loup (John-Wolf) is a common name in French. In Spanish we have the female names Milagros (Miracles), Dolores (Pains), Paloma (Dove), Angustias (Anguishes) and Pilar (Pillar), among others.

So your name-building sounds plausible enough.

[libskrat]

Most of those Spanish names, as I'm sure you already know, are clipped from "Nuestra Señora de..." locutions. (Including Pilar.)

I've always thought this would be a marvelous way to freak people out in a fantasy story, translating such names a la the faux-Native-American names you'll see in some books.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

I know a guy called Nissim, Hebrew for "miracles". He's just grateful his parents didn't call him Ruakh, "wind" (though it's like the Greek form, it also means "spirit" and "breath" and so forth).

At this point I really have to quote Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love. Linda is an lass of a nutty aristocratic family who has run away with her politico boyfriend (or has she married him?) to Spain, and he's told her to sort out assigning the berths on the ship:

---------------

Linda looked at the list of families. It took the form of a card index, the head of each family having a card on which was written the number and names of his dependents.

"It doesn't give their ages," said Linda. "How am I to know if there are young babies?"

"Quite easy," said Christian. "With Spaniards you can always tell. Before the war they were called either after saints or after episodes in the sex life of the Virgin - Annunciata, Asuncion, Purificacion, Concepcion, Consalacion, etc. Since the Civil War they are all called Carlos after Charlie Marx, Federico after Freddie Engels or Estalina (very popular until the Russians let them down with a wallop), or else nice slogans like Solidaridad-Obreara, Libertad, and so on. Then you know the children are under three. Couldn't be simpler, really."

-----------

Christian and Robert came back from Cette in a cheerful mood. The arrangements had gone like clockwork, and a baby which had been born during the first half-hour on the ship was named Embarcacion. It was the kind of joke Christian very much enjoyed. Robert said to Linda:

"Did you work on any special plan when you were arranging the cabins, or how did you do it?"

"Why? Wasn't it all right?"

"Perfect. Everybody had a place, and made for it. But I just wondered what you went by when you allocated the good cabins, that's all."

"Well, I simply," said Linda, "gave the best cabins to the people who had Labrador on their card, because I used to have one when I was little and he was such a terrific - so sweet you know."

"Ah," said Robert, gravely, "all is now explained. Labrador in Spanish happens to mean labourer. So you see under your scheme (excellent by the way, most democratic) the farm hands all found themselves in luxury while the intellectuals were battened. That'll teach them not to be so clever. You did very well, Linda, we were all most grateful."

"He was such a sweet Labrador," said Linda dreamily, "I wish you could have seen him. I do miss not having pets."

[libskrat]

That first one is totally awesome. You have no idea how awesome it is. I spent almost a year of my LIFE inputting census records from early-20th-century Puerto Rico, and yeah -- the name thing, NAILED.

I am still giggling. Must read this book now.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

Yes, you must. Thankfully someone else typed them in along with others here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/_themitfords/1044.html). It's dotty but adorable.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

On looking at that post, don't read past the first comment, the next one spoils the plot. Here's a completely unmissable quotation that's below it. Linda again, of course:

But oh how dreadful it is, cooking, I mean. That oven - Christian puts things in and says: “Now you take it out in about half an hour”. I don’t dare tell him how terrified I am, and at the end of half an hour I summon up all my courage and open the oven, and there is that awful hot blast hitting one in the face. I don’t wonder people sometimes put their heads in and leave them out of sheer misery. Oh, dear, and I wish you could have seen the Hoover running away with me, it suddenly took the bit between the teeth and made for the lift shaft. How I shrieked - Christian only just rescued me in time. I think housework is far more tiring and frightening than hunting is, no comparison, and yet after hunting we had eggs for tea and were made to rest for hours, but after housework people expect one to go on just as if nothing special had happened.

[menin-aeide.livejournal.com]

Claro. But it is funny, the face on English speakers' faces the first time they are told that a child is called Pains.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

e Guin's system of magic has always made sense to me, that if you know something's true name, you have power over it.

Oh, absolutely, though it's not like the whole power of naming thing began with her. Genesis comes to mind, Adam naming the animals, and people always quote Milton on the subject. She used in beautifully in her system of magic, though.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes. It probably says something about my brain that the first two precedents I thought of were Eliot and Le Guin.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

P.S. I'm just looking through your other entries and wanted to say I liked your "Chloe and Olivia" article. I've noticed the lack of space for friendship in fiction as well. It's one of the reasons why I love Sara Maitland's writing, she really values friendship and writes well about it.

I discovered hairsticks in October, after spending the first 27 years of my life (well, the ones I had long hair in, I was bald until I was one) wearing nothing fancier than a couple of bulldog clips. They're horribly addictive. Whose do you use, and what's your hair like? Just curiosity.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed the article.

Hairsticks are a very new thing for me.

My hair, by parental fiat, was kept short when I was small. I started growing it out as a teenager and had long hair (varying between shoulder length and waist length) until I cut it all off in a fit of exasperation the spring before I took Prelims. It was extremely short for the next five years while I was writing my dissertation, and now I've started growing it out again (largely because it is thick, with just enough curl to be unmanageable, and grows fast, so that to keep it under control when it's short requires more time and effort than it's worth). Shoulder-length-almost now. Aside from hairsticks, I've also figured out how to use combs, (another thing I never mastered in my teens and early twenties), so I can get it up and out of my face and have it stay more or less where I put it. Don't know how long I'm going to let it get this time.

I don't have any idea who made the pair of hairsticks I have (the peril of buying things in the dealers' room at SF conventions). I'll probably be experimenting with others here eventually--any suggestions?

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

You really shouldn't have said that. Say goodbye to your bank balance. Though if you're growing your hair, it's not worth buying too many until you get to your target length. I don't expect mine to get much longer, and the most I'd want is another 7" (it's currently 38", long enough to sit on, and that's how it's always been), so I have been going absolutely mad with these things.

eBay's the main place. A seller called blondiesturn (real name Eve, which is mine as well) makes really beautiful plain wooden hairforks, both on eBay and to order. To order they're $15, they tend to start at that or $9.99 on eBay. climbingbear_auctions make lovely wooden forks too and usually have quite a variety up on eBay as well as on their site at http://www.climbingbear.com/woodenhairjewelry.html. Ron Quattro makes a variety of fancier stuff, on eBay he's ronquattro and his site is at http://www.rubylane.com/shops/ronquattro/ilist/,cs=Artisans:Shillelagh+Stix,id=1.11.html. He's much cheaper on eBay, lots of his stuff ends up there. If it was me I'd go for a nice everyday fork to begin with, 4 3/4" or 5" should be a good length, not too long on your hair at the moment and long enough to keep you going for a while, assuming you're going for moderately long. I have no end of fun matching woods to hair colours, and they're lovely presents for friends. I have two Quattro pairs winging their way over which I'm very excited about, these (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=6754381352&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT) and a pair like these (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=45225&item=6754662533&rd=1) only 6" long.

Er, I'm not usually this girly...

I've gathered that you're writing a book and that it's SF or fantasy and clearly you're a good feminist, but not much else. Tell me more?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Um.

About me, or the book?

(To combine both topics: the book I'm working on right now is my second book. My first book, Mélusine (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-0441012868-0), will be out in August. Kekropia is the sequel. They're secondary-world fantasy.)

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

In slightly more detail? The link just showed me the book with more of the cover visible. I'm not a big SF/F reader, I tend to go for the utopian/dystopian stuff, the ones playing with ideas and people rather than "Ooh, shiny new technology! Let's all have big battles over it!"

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

My work tends to be heavily character-driven and internal, so not so much with the battles and such like.

I don't know. I'm completely ineffectual at trying to describe my own books. I can tell you that my major influences are J. R. R. Tolkien and Ellen Kushner, with a dash of Gene Wolfe thrown in for lagniappe. (Not that I would claim to be able to write like any of these people, mind you.) Mélusine is about the influence of the past on the present, both personally and historically. The two protagonists are those genre staples: the wizard and the thief. (I was appalled, too, when I realized what I'd done, but I hope Felix and Mildmay subvert genre conventions as much as they play to them.) Heavy world-building. Madness, betrayal, angst (Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...) You know. The usual. *g*