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

[jeriendhal]

Ah, this subject is near and dear to my heart, because a few months back I completed a fic in chaypeta's Terinu universe where the main cast ran into their "evil" (or at least different) twins. Six main canon characters, with their six alternates. Sorting out who was supposed to be who occasionally got me confused, never the poor readers who were trying to follow along.

Some were easy. Leeza Blake is a civilian in the canon universe, so her military counterpart could just go by "Captain Blake". Terinu went by his given name, unless he was in the presence of his more domineering twin, in which case he was referred to his old diminutive "Mouse".

From there it got a bit more confusing. Generally I sorted it out by sticking to one character's POV during the scene, and having them use the names of their close companions only, refering to their alternates as "Rufus's twin" or "Lance's brother" (depending on how close a relationship they developed during the course of the story.)

[isiscolo]

Oh, interesting. I normally can't stand epithets (that is, reference to characters by description rather than by name) but I can see that it might be useful to keep things straight in a case like this.

[franzeska]

Me neither, but that's usually because they feel really forced. If it feels in character to me, I don't mind it. I have no problem with a child character thinking of another character as "so-and-so's mom" as though that's her name, for example. (Witness the hilarity of the second American Pie movie.)

[jeriendhal]

Well, I tried to keep it as natural as possible. In some cases I even managed to have a little fun with it, with characters referring to "Lance and Lance" or getting confused as to which one they were talking to, since their personalities were so similar in both universes.

Rufus referred to his own counterpart as his brother, since he felt a strong need to help him out of the situation he'd gotten into.

[isiscolo]

Oh, was that the Yuletide fic? I didn't read it (I've been avoiding Temeraire stories until I read book 4) but yeah, I can see how that would get tremendously complicated. I mean, that's why we use these first-name vs last-name games, to make things easier for the reader to follow.

Using different forms of a name for variation drives me nuts, but I have been painfully aware lately that this is done in profic all the time.

[azurelunatic]

Anime fanfic tends to like to set up camp in epithet country, and then change up epithets for variation. I think I've finally broken my roommate of that one.

[loneraven]

Ah, this post was so much fun. I love the use of names, endearments, epithets, all of them, as tools to characterisation. I also hate the habit of inconsistent character names in published fiction. So much hate for that. In fic, I think, it has become an unspoken rule that we tend to use the name fandom at large uses, just for clarity's sake. But I'm with Ursula Le Guin on the point that names are powerful - it's such a wasted opportunity, I think, when an author switches from last to first names and doesn't explain to us the reasons for the change. (The kids are grown up and finally call Lupin "Remus" in Deathly Hallows! I loved that

[blackletter]

I'm yet to meet a woman who genuinely prefers her last name to her first

Heh--before this was posted, I was writing up my own post in which I said that I don't relate to my first name at all. (And even less to my middle name). But then, I'm trans. (And the realization that I don't relate to my name, and have *never* related to my name was part of what helped me figure that out.)

I wish I could get people to call be by my last name, but unlike Tonks, my last name doesn't sound like a quirky nickname--it sounds like an awkward last name.

And I'm with you that "special" nicknames for characters--that only one person uses--are the best.

[isiscolo]

(The kids are grown up and finally call Lupin "Remus" in Deathly Hallows! I loved that.)

Yes! And that's what I was saying above, about how the change in usage can signal a change in relationship, and that's so powerful.

You are totally right that last name usage is a military thing and so carries over into military fandoms - also the British schoolkid (and high-end American prep school I guess) thing. Harry and Draco call each other Malfoy and Potter, but nobody I ever went to school with did that kind of thing.

I think of myself using my middle name, and don't have any instinctive connection with my first.

So, um, the name I know you by - is that first or middle? My first name is quite unusual, and so I identify with it very strongly. My last name is boring and common and I don't identify with it much, except I must have, to have retained it when I got married.

[loneraven]

British schoolchildren! Yes, I totally forgot that was a distinction you had to make. Again, gender seems to be important - I went to a traditional old public school where the girls were called by their first names (mostly - sometimes it was "Miss [lastname]", and it was always that when written down) but you could tell which teachers had originally taught at the boys' down the road, because they'd have that moment of hesitation when calling the register

[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.

[china_shop]

or Benton (which most of his male friends/associates seem to call him

Quinn and Smithbauer both call him Ben, as does Bob in his diary in the Pilot and, perhaps more compellingly since he's addressed adult!Fraser, Gerard. (Gerard: And you're going to go. Go charging across the border frisking sportsmen at random? Ben, man to man, if this really was a murder I'd like to find who ever did it and show them the view from the end of a rope, but I can't do that and neither can you. (From the transcript site.)) I always assumed Benton was the equivalent of Diefenbaker and Raymond -- good for formal introductions, but not what a friend would say.

My first Ray/Ray story was in first person so that I could call the other Ray "Ray". Since then I've generally gone for the standard arrangement, but then, I have no problem with people calling each other by their surnames, especially cops. I mean, once it's their name, it's their name, and the intimacy is in the context or intonation. Which is not to say that I haven't used first names for effect

[isiscolo]

Oh, you're right. My search function doesn't seem to be working now (argh! I think it's NoScript) but I wrote that last month when I started this essay. Delmar calls him Benton, though, in CotW. Although admittedly, since I don't have a name that can be easily shortened, I'm not really up on when and how people shorten stuff.

I just am not used to hearing people call each other by their last names, in real life! So it pings oddly for me when I think of a character by first name. Yet, Fraser is still Fraser to me. I dunno. :-)

[franzeska]

I was reading something the other day with a character named Ichabod who people kept calling "Icky".