just don't call me late for dinner

[isiscolo]

For reasons which probably don't need exploring at this juncture I've been thinking (for a very long time, now; I promised to write about this last year) about names. Namely (heh): first names and last names, and the usage of each in fic.

There are three issues on my mind, which are only tangentially related: what name the POV character uses in

Comments

[blackletter]

I think of myself by my first name, as I suspect most people do.I think I'm an oddity, but I don't think of myself by my first name at all. My first name feels completely alien to me. But then, I have a pretty large identity issue. Because of all that, I tend to think about name usage a lot when writing--because nomenclature *does* say something important about self identity (or issues therewith

[blackletter]

I forgot to mention that one good example of the slow and subtle name shift over the course of a story is in C. S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy. The POV character starts off primarily thinking of one of other characters as "Hunter" (what the character is known by to the world at large--he's perceived as a sort of boogy-man figure), then later by his last name when the POV character realizes that the fellow is just a man *not* the boogy-man, and finally, towards the end, first name references as the POV character has become close to this guy.

[isiscolo]

You are an oddity! But identity issues will do that. I identify very strongly with my first name, possibly because it's quite unusual. (Although, interestingly, I recently realized through conversation with another fandom person that the "single theme" I write over and over again in my stories is that of identity. It's not so much identity by a name as, who am I, and to what extent does what is exterior and how people perceive me define and constrain who I actually am?)

I totally understand using whichever name the POV character would use - but this is my point, here: sometimes, if it's not the name the reader is used to - it causes some dissonance. I am not sure what to do in these cases! But as I said above, I like it when name usage shifts to reflect a shifting relationship.

Exceptions are when the character is in an occupation or a time period where they're refered to by their last name more than their first. For example, in Sherlock Holmes fandom, even if Holmes is the POV character, I'd refer to him in narrative as

[blackletter]

I totally understand using whichever name the POV character would use - but this is my point, here: sometimes, if it's not the name the reader is used to - it causes some dissonance. I am not sure what to do in these cases!

I guess I've never had that jarring sensation. So long as I agree with the author's choice of what name to use, I'm not bothered if it's a name I don't encounter as often in canon.

[melannen]

I don't tend to think of myself by my first name either! I don't think it's a gender identity thing with me; I tend to blame it on the fact that I spent most of my life alternating between two identities, the nickname I've been called from birth, and the official name that I often just went with at camp and after-school classes and things like that. There are quite a few people who only know me by one name and have no clue about the other, so I think I just never got used to the idea that there was one name that meant *me*.

Part of the reason I'm sure it's not a gender identity thing with me is that I frequently do refer to myself with pet-names like Girl, or My Darling Dear, or Chica, or Old Lady, or (after I fell in love with Casablanca) Kid, or, y'know, You Lazy Bastard Get Off The Couch.

Maybe I just haven't found my True Name in the Old Speech yet. That would explain why the wizardry never works!
(see below for my thoughts on writing POV)

[blackletter]

I guess we're just the Nameless Ones. *grins*

I love the pet-names. I don't do pet-names so such as self-epithets in my head. (The grad student. The TA. The classicist. The faneunuch. The short brunet. The person-in-a-big-black-coat.) But I don't have a name to tie together these identities. Strangely (or maybe not) over the years I've started to identify more with my internet handles than my real name.

[melannen]

I can tell it's been a bad day if I start to use "My Precious". *g*

Dude- so, do you often think of yoursel(ves) in third person? That's really cool. I'm always in either first or second in my head (except occasionally when it comes to the deep-down id voices, and they really are Nameless Ones), so the epithets wouldn't work for me.

And I know a lot of people (like, um, me) who are more likely to answer to their handles than their real names.

[isiscolo]

Heh. Since I have such an unusual name and never met someone else with it until I was in my teens, I assume that anyone calling MY name is calling ME. Which, when I was in a group of friends that included SOMEONE ELSE WITH MY NAME back when I lived in Boulder, was weird as all hell.

But I answer to Isis, also.

[nemesister]

I think you have a wrong impression about Snape because of the PoV of the books. The only characters I can remember to call him "Snape" to his face are Sirius, Bellatrix, Fudge, Umbridge and fake!Moody (maybe Yaxley?)- and except for Fudge they are all trying quite hard to be rude there