Book lovers chime in on best names
I love my readers. Almost every letter I get begins with the statement “I too am a book lover.” Writing this column has made it possible for me to find my people. Your passion for books and delight in discussing, agreeing and arguing over them is nourishment for me.
My recent column on my favorite names of fictional characters elicited a flood of letters that begged to be shared. It makes me deliriously happy to know so many people care about this kind of stuff. It restores my faith in our collective destiny.
David wrote to extol the naming talents of A.A. Milne (Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Tigger) and Beverly Cleary (Henry Huggins, Beezus and Ramona). He remembers: “Beverly Cleary was invited to come to the elementary school that I attended in Menlo Park and address the students. … She was greeted by the kids there as if she were a rock star. … She was asked question after question by the kids and I think finally she left the stage well after the recess was over. I mean, when Beverly Cleary was there, foursquare and touch football could be put on hold.”
That’s my kind of happy memory.
Kris votes for the Jasper Fforde series of novels about literary detective Thursday Next. Millon de Floss is Thursday’s biographer, her dad is Colonel Next, and he is the only one who knows his own first name. Fforde’s world of fiction has its own police force, Jurisfiction, where more delicious names abound.
Sylvia wrote to inform me that Margaret Mitchell wrote “Gone With the Wind” and submitted it to publishers with the Scarlett O’Hara character named Pansy. One can hardly imagine Rhett and Pansy.
Several of you wrote to give a shout-out to Nurse Ratched in Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” A memorable name indeed (and one often applied to unfriendly medical people in real life).
Harlan weighs in with being terrified as a child by J.M. Barrie’s appropriately named Captain Hook in “Peter Pan” and Stephen King’s rabid dog, Cujo, in the book of the same name. Along with several other readers, he mentions Ian Fleming of James Bond fame as a master of names, mentioning Miss Moneypenny, the sinister Dr. No, Goldfinger, Oddjob and, of course, the alluring Pussy Galore. (I think we can agree that Ms. Galore probably wouldn’t make it into print today.)
Henry loves the aptly named law firm of Dunning, Sponget & Leach in Tom Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities.”
Sally’s right up to date, calling out Dee Cameron in Gary Shteyngart’s new novel “Our Country Friends,” about friends who decamp to the countryside to wait out the pandemic, just as in Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th century work “The Decameron.”
“Thomas Hardy’s books contain many wonderful character names,” writes Nick. His favorites, from “Far From the Madding Crowd,” are Bathsheba Everdene, the high-spirited mistress of a farm — “a sort of 19th century femme fatale,” he says — and Gabriel Oak, the patient, constant shepherd and suitor to Bathsheba.
John chimed in to nominate “the greatest of them all,” J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien, he explains, invented languages for his cultures, then constructed names from meaningful syllables. “As a result, the character names from each culture sound authentic and linguistically related to each other. There are hundreds of good examples, but a few famous characters, each from a different culture: Aragorn, Galadriel, Éowyn, Frodo and Gandalf.”
Larry argues that in the clever naming game, “nobody can touch Charles Dickens,” citing as evidence Oliver Twist, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby and Edwin Drood. I would agree that Dickens is right up there with Shakespeare.
In the children’s book category, Lynette nominates Russell Hoban for these evocative names from “How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen”: Najork, of course, plus Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong and Aunt Bundle Joy Cozy Sweet.
Puts me in mind of one of my own childhood favorites, the inimitable Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.
Barbara Lane can’t remember a time when she didn’t have her nose in a book. Her column appears every other Tuesday in Datebook. Email: barbara. lane@sfchronicle.com