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While cleaning up my genealogy files a while ago, I was struck by a number of…interesting names on my family tree. As a fiction writer, naming my characters takes a lot of time and thought. I want the names to be distinctive, so that readers can keep everyone clear in their heads, but I don’t want them to be so distracting that they pull the audience out of the story.
But I’d have to be writing something in the John Irving/Richard Brautigan vein in order to pull off anything close to the names of some of my august forbears. I’ve put some of the weirdest into loose categories below for your enjoyment.
From the British Isles (yes, they certainly do sound like spammers’ pseudonyms):
Gotham Howe
Gillachomhghaill O’Toole
Onesiphorus Tileston
Mabilia Talesmache
Benedicta Shelving
Gwair ap Pill
Rollo Bigod
Theopharcia Baliol
John MacHell
Scandinavia (Tolkien didn’t work in a vacuum):
Frosti Karasson
Eyfuru Svaflamasdatter
Gandalf Alfgeirsson
Frodi Frodasson
The American Frontier:
Catherine Vandeventer-Turnipseed
Josnorum Scoenonti Running Deer
Polly Pickle
Thomasine Lumpkin
Elsewhere in Europe:
Burkhard von Schweinfurt
Gundreda Monasteriis
Aubrey de Mello
Adam Moomaw
Hienrich von Krickenbeck
Finally, Those Wacky Puritans:
Constantia Coffin
Thankful Sprout
Deliverance Nutting
Wealthy Blood
Including my personal favorite:
Preserved Fish
Poor Preserved. I presume that his name was shorthand for “Preserved by the hand of the Lord.” Maybe Mrs. Fish almost died in childbed, or something like that. Her maiden name was Grizzel Strange, by the way, so you’d think that she’d be sensitive on the naming issue. Or perhaps her name and that of her son’s didn’t sound odd at all to 17th-century ears.
Oh, well; I guess when it comes right down to it, it’s a heck of a lot easier researching folks like Preserved Fish than yet another John Carter or Mary White. And it certainly keeps me smiling.