Edith Wharton Will Teach You Everything You Need to Know About Naming Characters

Character names are a strange aspect of the novel, one E.M. Forster neglected to cover. They are so important, so central to a reader’s experience with a book, and yet so often attended to at the last moment, if at all. From personal experience, character names often adhere early on in a draft, and it is only with an immense conscious effort that an author is able to pry the original handle away from its jealous owner. They run the gamut from the naturalistic and seemingly inconsequential (Patrick Melrose, Joseph Marlowe) to artificial and significant (Oedipa Maas, Thomas Gradgrind); from the subtle (India Bridge) to the obvious (Stephen Dedalus, Becky Sharp, Mr. Merdle); from the very good (Atticus Finch, Veruca Salt) to the very bad (Purity Tyler).

Good names often don’t matter all that much to the reading experience, but bad ones can be not only annoying but counterproductive and unilluminating. by is one of my favorite novels, but the surname “Bentwood” for Otto and Sophie—as touches on in. More importantly, it feels forced. You can hear the author coming up with it, and this precious quality does not serve the book, although is great enough to weather this minor storm.