What is in a name?

[Dark Muse]

What are some of your favorite character names, which can be considered to be a bit more upon the unusual or unique side?

I have been reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac and something about the name Sal Paradise just really jumped out at me. I just love that name and think it has a great sound to it, and that inspired me to start this thread.

[King Mob]

Uriah Heep - it sounds wonderful

And Wednesday from Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Those are the ony two i can come up with now. But surely there are a lot more.

I just remembered John Constantine, not from the movie though.

[Barbarous]

Mostly Shakespearean names, they sound rueful (Timon, Macbeth, Titus Andronicus, oh and Touchstone the clown heh).

[JuniperWoolf]

I like "Holden Caulfield."

[Dark Muse]

That is a good one. I also really like Seymore Glass

[wessexgirl]

I love Uriah Heep too. You can't beat Dickens for names. I love Merrylegs the dancing dog, in Hard Times, and Gradgrind, Bounderby and M'Choakumchild. Don't those names just sum them up? You could probably go through every Dickens book and find great names. Names like Cherry and Merry Pecksniff, aka Charity and Mercy, (possessing none of those qualities), Wackford Squeers, Fezziwig, Montigue Tigg, and later Tigg Montigue, Augustus Snodgrass and on and on......:lol:

I'll have to think about some that aren't Dickens.

[JuniperWoolf]

Oh yeah, and Queequeg = awesome name.

[Mathor]

"Holly Golightly"

[LitNetIsGreat]

God I can't really think of one. I actually like Tom Ripley, but there is nothing much too special about the name, it just has a certain ring to it. Incidentally, The Talented Mr Ripley is one of my favourite films too.

[Dark Muse]

That was a really good movie

[MSDGreen]

I really like the name Ambrosio. Things end sadly for Ambrosio :bawling:

[Paulclem]

Mr Jaggers - the lawyer from Great Expectations - just dealing with the facts.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I really like the name Ambrosio. Things end sadly for Ambrosio :bawling:

What as in The Monk? He got what was coming to him though.

[Niamh]

Steerpike from gormansghast. loved that name.

[The Comedian]

Love me some Kilgore Trout, from the mind of Mr. Vonnegut.

[MSDGreen]

What as in The Monk? He got what was coming to him though.

Ahh.. So things ended happily for him? He did seal his own fate though.

[rozreads]

Huckleberry Finn?

[stlukesguild]

You can't beat Humbert Humbert... it sums up his character perfectly.:thumbs_up

[Niamh]

Oh and Ford Prefect! Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy!

[Annabelle]

Alexander Superstamp. hehe. Into the wild

[Fen]

Raffles, it is just the perfect name for a gentleman thief and of course Bunny his faithful friend. Also the Barnacle family in Little Dorrit. Dickens was great at making names that just captured characters.

[Dark Muse]

This is a kids book, but I always loved the name Bunnicula. Haha not surperisingly as a kid I loved those stories.

[Paulclem]

Dorian Grey - class and character

[Pecksie]

Bathsheba Everdene?

[JuniperWoolf]

You can't beat Humbert Humbert... it sums up his character perfectly.:thumbs_up

Yeah, that's a great name. :thumbs_up


Dorian Grey - class and character

Because of that book, if I ever reproduce and my offspring happens to be male, I'm going to call him Dorian.

[Dark Muse]

Jumper Saul ~ Fifth Business

The character is rather minor but the name just jumped out at me, no pun intended.

[stlukesguild]

Because of that book, if I ever reproduce and my offspring happens to be male, I'm going to call him Dorian...

And not Humbert?:goof:

[Whifflingpin]

Of course, some novelists' real names are quite juicy - Tobias Smollett, Jack Kerouac, Amanda Prantera, for instance.

[Zee.]

Lena Grove

[Helga]

Dorian Gray, Eva Luna. and many of woody Allen's characters have interesting names like Agathon, professor Leon Speciman...

[MANICHAEAN]

Christabel LaMotte in "Possession" by A.S.Byatt.
The desiccated scholiast Casaubon in "Middlemarch" by George Eliot.

[bluosean]

I like David Copperfield.

[HipHopAvenger]

I remembered a good old Bilbo Baggins from the Lord of the Rings. :D

[LMK]

Oh yeah, and Queequeg = awesome name.

I agree, great character, too!

[promtbr]

I have always had a fondness for Benny Profane in Pynchon's V



---

[Dark Lady]

Because of that book, if I ever reproduce and my offspring happens to be male, I'm going to call him Dorian...

And not Humbert?:goof:

:lol: You know what's really annoying? I absolutely adore the name Lolita. I think it would be a great name for a girl but, of course, you couldn't name a girl Lolita now.

Nabokov, you have a lot to answer for!

[Pecksie]

Another idea --- Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.

[Akeldama]

I really like the name Malachi Constant, from Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan, a name which means "faithful messenger".

I've always just enjoyed the sound of it more than the meaning, really.

And while not literary, I fell in love with the name Kezia from a Protest the Hero album of the same name. If I were to have a daughter, that would be her name. Unfortunately (or fortunately, really) I don't intend to ever father a child. I just can't see myself bringing another neurotic soul into the world. My own sanity is stretched far enough as it is.