Customer Reviews

The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook

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3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

"The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook" is useful for some writing, but it also includes grave errors that may turn your story into unintentional comedy. I'll get to that in a moment; first, let me say that I liked Blythe and Sweet's essay on naming strategies, even though they make a few weird statements in it (a fictional town called Leslie might indeed seem isolated and cut off because Leslie means "from the gray fortress," but only if the reader already knows this). Names are important in a story, and the strategies have been useful to me.

The lists of names from different cultures also seemed good at first, while I was still browsing through cultures I don't know a thing about. Then came the lists dealing with my own culture, that of Sweden, and my enthusiasm died. A quick summary:

1) Kenyon has confused male and female names. Under Female, we find the quite masculine Adrian, Lage, Svante and a few others. The female names Bodil and Valborg turn up under Male.

2) Many of the names haven't been common for about a thousand years (Saxe, Alrik), are extremely rare (Guda), or simply aren't Swedish at all (Quenby).

3) The dots and rings are missing. It might seem overly picky to complain about something like that, but an A with a ring over it isn't just some kind of modified A--it's a whole other letter. Personally, when I'm studying names from a foreign culture that uses the Latin alphabet, I want the original spelling rather than an anglified version of it.

There are other things to complain about, but I'll stop there--obviously, using these lists to find names for Swedish characters may not give you the result that you want, and Swedes may end up laughing at your story. I don't know if it's the same with the other lists in the book, but until I do, I won't use the names "as is." I will, however, use them as starting points when I need realistic, diverse names and words for fantasy settings. In that context, I find the book very useful!

Anyone who has been writing for some time knows just how difficult it is to come up with meaningful character names. Yet having a meaningful name, one relevant to the story, is as integral a part of the plotting process as the actual outline itself. Naming a character who is a free-spirit Todd is just wrong; it reflects nothing but laziness on the part of the writer. Francis, which actually means free, is a much better alternative, and matches almost perfectly.

Another thing this book is good for is for fantasy writing. How many of you have a read a fantasy story and found the names of characters so strange that it could only have been made up? This book actually tells us to use established names and warp them or combine them to give more suitable fantasy names.

This book also has a huge selection of nationalities, from African to Welsh, and everything between, including dead languages such as Latin, as well as Asian nationalities like Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. It provides male and female names as well as their meanings, along with common family names.

Though The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook obviously isn't meant for every writer, it's definitely an important book for fiction writers. It helps to legitimize a story's plot or theme by providing meaningful names, and also shows that a writer is willing to do some research in order to succeed in his or her writing. So, if you you're a genre writer, I'd highly recommend this book, and put the phone book back where it should be: next to your phone.

This book is not just for writers, but for researches or anyone who wants to know the history and meaning behind a name; their own name or that of a child soon to be born.

Beginning with The Importance of a Name you discover ways to make people care about the person simply by choosing a name. Next is the importance of Characternyms, or what does the name impart? One of the examples is Magnum from the Hawaii based TV series starring Tom Selleck. Magnum is not only a wine bottle that holds twice as much as a normal liter, but it is also a very powerful bullet. We are presented with a hero that is "bigger than life" but who also is effervescent, strong, and brings the ring of sex appeal that champagne, laughter and a stunning force carry with them. It was a masterful name selection.

There are names by genre, gender, country (including illusive Native American, Latin, Greek, Russian and more) as well as notes in how to use the names to create the right impression: for example "...the Norman invasion in 1066...English were referred to by occupation...Aiken the Miller or Aisley of York."

Character Naming Source Book is filled with gems and is far more than a general account about names. For example Victoria (my name) is Latin and means triumphant. Feminine derivatives are also Viktoria (Hungarian-victorious, Swedish-victory) Vittoria (Spanish-victor), Victrix, Vincentia, Victrixa; in Scottish Vika is "from the creek" and Torra is "from the castle." It would appear that I am a triumphant female from the castle by the creek. This is only a small sample of the wealth within these pages.

Without doubt this is one of most complete histories of names that I have ever read, and I have about five books just on naming. I recommend this book unequivocally.

If you're a novelist then you need this book. Its the best character-naming book I ever found. The name lists are conveniently organized for easy access, into categories like Anglo-Saxon, Arabic, Native American, Welsh, etc, and each chapter gives you a general idea of last names too. There is even a chapter for Arthurian legend names!

This is a thick book and probably all you'll ever need for giving your characters authentic names. Hopefully, this book will make it less likely for us to see a Russian character with the Swedish spelling of the name Sonja. There are so many names that sound the same in different cultures, but a simple difference in spelling can make all the difference for an authentic character.

The name Valerio sounds so Italian, does't it? There are a lot of Native Americans that might argue with you about that. You might want a "very English" character to have the name Brit . . . but you're actually giving that character a common Norse name. A lot of Americans assume its British, but you'll have a hard time finding many British people named Brit. How do you spell and pronounce Nicole? The Greek way or the French way? I could go on and on with the value of this book.

This is an indespensable book for the writer. It is organized by nation of origin and includes many archaic names, making it a prize for those whose prose swings to the fantastic or historical. Perfect for finding the right name, especially as the meanings are presented. This allows for more nuanced name choices, where the name reflects something in the character's personality and is not as obvious as some choices.

However, I have used the names and meanings as a resource for building several fantasy languages. Break up a name, any name, into its component parts and assign it a meaning from the name's origin. Within a day or two you will have a fairly consistent and interesting begining to a new language. Combine some of those component parts with usable meanings into different words and they gain new meanings. It becomes a way to create a new tongue without the blood, sweat, and tears needed to acquire a linguistics degree.

I'd heard such good things about this book, that I could hardly wait to get it. Well I got it finally, and I'm sorry to say I'm a little disappointed.

I thought I was getting more than a baby name book. I was hoping it would delve into the psychology of names, why certain names evoke heroic characters and others always point out the sinister. I wanted to see examples from literature. I wanted it to be more in depth about the actual naming process.

There was a short opening at the beginning that speaks a little about those things. After that though, it is basically a baby name book. In fact, its a lot like the Melting Pot Book of Baby Names, which also divides names by country. Both books give a short introduction to naming practices and culture, though Melting Pot also speaks about immigration. The Sourcebook does give a small section on surnames, which is helpful but not exactly worth buying the book over.

In short, I was just expecting more out of this book. Its a little deceiving, in my opinion. As it should be really classified as a hardbound baby name book for authors.

Don't get me wrong; I liked this book; but the editorial description and the majority of other reviews of this book make it sound like this is a profound volume exploring the depths of the art of the naming of your character; but it's not. The first twenty-six or so pages is a light piece by Blythe and Sweet divided into four chapters that whizzes by every form or way that they can think of to pick appropriate names for your characters but; and no offense to Blythe and Sweet; it reads like an amateur writer's guide to the creation of the personality of a character through the device of choosing a name for it, him or her. They drop a lot of names of famous characters and refer to the names of many famous author's characters but the way they write it it sounds like they're trying to put forth this statement (that all writers manipulate their audiences through the use of clever or meaningful names in their characters) and then try to prove it backwards by calling up lots of examples and sounding very authoritative but I thought it was rather manipulative to do it in that way because it sounds like the ways they're suggesting are the only ways you should do it officially; if you want to do it right. Obviously there are myriads of ways to come up with names of characters and just because Blythe and Sweet say you should do it one way doesn't mean that you necessarily have to follow their example.

Now the rest of the book is series of lists of names organized under various categories (here they are: Anglo-Saxon, Arabic, Armenian, Arthurian Legend Names, Basque, Celtic, Czechoslovakian (Obviously it's a little dated...), Danish, Dutch, Egyptian, English, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indian, Irish, Italian, Latin, Native American, Norse, Persian, Polish, Russian, Scandinavian, Scottish, Slavic, Spanish, Swedish, Teutonic, Ukranian, Welsh, and "Other" (where Kenyon puts all the names that don't fit into any of the other categories, like Yiddish and Urdu and Sanskrit)) and an alphabetically organized index. With each list Kenyon writes a little blurb that generally describes the culture from which the names come and how names are often used within that culture followed by two lists of names: Female and Male. For the breadth of Western and Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures used I commend Kenyon; but I found the depth of the number of names in each cultural segment a little lacking. Many names that I know are Russian names for example are not in the Russian section (not to say that she put Russian names in the wrong section; those names I was looking for weren't in the book at all). Also lacking were the East Asian culture's names (like the ridiculously large number of names coming from China) and the South and Latin American Culture's names (like Brazil and Columbia) and glaringly missing is a section entirely devoted to names often used in North America and the different regions within each of its countries but I assume Kenyon was attempting to display names that were originated in native and old world cultures (but again is missing one of the oldest cultures; namely China; and the aboriginal cultures of Australia and New Zealand and for that matter the Inuit cultures of North America).

Tips on using this book efficiently: obviously, use the index first; it's a little difficult to look for names by country or culture or to skim through each cultural section one by one (honestly if you do that it gets a little monotonous and the sheer number of cultures can be a little overwhelming). I suggest skimming through the index; finding a name that sounds familiar; looking at all of the similar ones; and then looking them all up. I think you'll find that the book's strength is in the wide variety of names and cultures and meanings from each culture presented and represented.

The book itself is 9 1/4"X6 1/4"x 1 1/4"; weighs almost 1 1/2 pounds; has a nice hard cover and a good heft; is a garish dark raspberry sherbet in color inscribed with thin orange scripted examples of names and covered with a purple rectangular box edged in orange on the front with the title in white letters along with the names of the writers and editors and a thin purple rectangular box edged in orange on the spine with Title and Writer's and editor's names and the publisher and a white rectangular box edged in orange with a general description of the book and a bar code on the back.

I don't normally write a review, but when I saw someone trashing what has to be the greatest name book ever written for writers, I just couldn't remain quiet. Ms. Kenyon did a FABULOUS JOB!!!! And she doesn't list just ten surnames--had the other person read the book, they would have found that she specfically goes into how surnames are developed in each region, then tells you how to use her guide to create your own authentic surname. I love the book. To quote from the English section: English surnames began as epitaphs or place, occupational and patronymic names (the meanings of these are given in a previous segment of the book). They can be traced back for centuries. By 1290 even peasants had surnames, but surnames didn't become hereditary (passed to all children) until after 1290. In fact, Ms. Kenyon clearly states "Surnames came late; these names were already in use as given names centuries earlier" which I took to mean that a list of surnam! ! es & given names would be redundant. Anyone who wants a book that is a FAR cut above baby name books NEEDS TO BUY THIS BOOK!! I've used it at every writer's talk/workshop I've ever taught.

I play Role-Playing Games extensively and this is the one character making aid my role-playing buddies drool over. Need a name for a telepathic half-orc assassin? Skim through some of the more exotic sections and you're sure to find something.

I also enjoy writing fantasy and this book can be a great help in that department as well. I am no expert and would not depend on it exclusively for a modern novel but for fantasy names it is invaluable.

This combined with a good baby name book can make an RPG gamers life easier, especially when they are faced with the daunting task of naming a Venusian ship captain with flashbacks and snakes for hair.

One complaint. Utter lack of Oriental names, there are all of two that are listed in every baby name book. Other than that, one fun book.

Many writers have several name books on their shelves, mostly baby name books, which are the most available. Many of these are good, but are divided between girls' and boys' names, then are listed alphabetically. In Kenyon's book, the names are organized by origin, then male/female, then alphabetically. This 2nd edition has been expanded, although meanings of the names are short, sometimes of no value at all. Although this book will fill most needs, having other name books would not be amiss. Although, one might get by with fewer once this one is added to the shelves.