What’s in a name?

One of the questions I get asked quite regularly is how I come up with my characters’ names.

The answer? I take inspiration from everywhere!

Sometimes, a place name conjures the character. For example, I’ve made several journeys recently along the A69, a road that crosses the spine of the country from east to west, connecting Cumbria (where I live) to Northumberland. I could people an entire book using the names of towns and villages signposted from that road. A particular favourite is Hayden Bridge, who I picture as a deferential, hard-up tutor to some unappreciative pupil, perhaps supporting an aged mother with his meagre stipend, possibly harbouring a hopeless desire for the daughter of his employer.

Or what do you think of Mrs Ovington? I picture her as a fecund matron with many mouths to feed, recently widowed.

Clara Vale? A farmer’s daughter, fresh-faced and sprightly, but doomed to be ruined by the squire, Lord Stamfordham.

Reverend Chollerford? A red-faced (choleric) man of the cloth, rather too fond of port wine.

Major Haltwhistle, officious and brusque. Miss Greenhead, simpering and very naive.

One of the characters in my new book, due out in June, is Herbert Somersall, inspired by a sign I saw to a village called Somersall Herbert.

In fact, as we travel around the country, one of our favourite pastimes is to visualise characters using the names of villages we pass. It beats "I-Spy"!

Usually though, the character comes first and their name follows inexorably and undeniably in their wake. Miss Trimble (The Lady in the Veil) is a good example. She had to be opposite to her nemesis Lady Jane in every way; halting and under confident, petite, poor and unassuming. Her terror of Lady Jane makes her tremble, so I was halfway there, but then she is a neat, tidy little body of a woman. Trim. So there it was.

In The House in the Hollow, my villain is an oily but vicious, self-seeking, predator of a man, loud, happy to snatch whatever he can, even things to which he is not entitled. At first I considered Seagull, which epitomises all those qualities, but eventually decided on Petrel. The giant variety is as large as an albatross, hunchbacked with a hooked bill - certainly a formidable predator.

Look at that cold, acquisitive eye!

The name of Viola Cutler, the villain of The Hoarder's Widow, was conjured by the 'violent' and 'cutting' aspects of her character ... see what I did there? But when she turns around in The Widow's Weeds the shy, tender flower connotations of her name came to the fore, and partly dictated the gardening theme of the book.

Characters’ names have to be appropriate to their culture and era. Thank heavens for Google! (Other search engines are available). I found a list of Irish names popular in the early 1800s that helped me find Ruairi, Donall, Cormac and the others for my new book, likewise the original Indian names of the two boys brought back to England by Robert Talbot. We all know that Georgian girls were not christened Kiara or Chelsea ,and in those days the boys' names popular today like Carter and Mason were strictly surnames. Having said that I must say I was delighted by my hero's name in The Lady in the Veil; Amory Balfour.

I'm a great fan of books with eccentrically named characters. Sir Timothy Beeswax in Trollope's The Prime Minister always makes me smile. Obadiah Slope is, to me, the archetypal unctuous clergyman (Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope). Evelyn Waugh's books are a treasure-trove of brilliantly named characters.

Personally, I avoid using the names of people I know, regardless of how evocative they might be. A person's name is so inextricably associated with the person themselves, so although I might invent a lady named Brenda who bears no resemblance or relation whatsoever to my dear friend Brenda, I fear it would be impossible for her to dissever the two.

"Do I really speak in a squeaky voice?" she might worry , or, "Is it true that I snaffle all the crisps?"

While my characters become dear friends to me, my real friends are dearer.

Sometimes I get it wrong. The first drafts of Relative Strangers had a Rob, a Robert and a Bob in it. That had to be changed!

I just found out that the three principal female characters in the new book all had names that began with the letter B. I don't know how this passed me by as I wrote it, but it has been hard to get used to Flossie and Rose when, in my head, they were Bertha and Bella.

And then, there are just some names that speak 'hero' or 'heroine', 'villain'. I just don't think you could believe in a hero called Cecil or Bert. I'm sorry if your name is Cecil or Bert!

I rarely get any feedback or comments from my blog posts. Tell me about place names you've come across that have conjured a personality or physical characteristics in your mind's eye.

How would you feel if you came across your name in a novel?

Have there been any characters in books or films that you have felt were wrongly named?