Just the other day, a dissatisfied reader charged me with using “hard-to-say” names, and there have been a few comments about the names I’ve used over the years, as if I had committed a horrible sin by not using plain Anglo-Saxon-English names. But… if I’m depicting other cultures, why would they necessarily have plain English names?
That said, are my choices of names that outrageous? Let’s see about protagonists’ names from recent books: Lerial, Quaeryt [more about this one later], Vaelora, and Paulo. Protagonists’ names from older books: Lerris, Creslin, Dorrin, Justen, Nylan, Cerryl, Lorn, Kharl, Saryn, Anna, Secca, Alucius, Mykel, Dainyl, Rhennthyl, Van, Tyndal, Trystin, Jonat, Johan, Llysette, Ecktor, and Keir. Perhaps not always usual names, but hardly tongue-twisters, and almost all of either one or two syllables.
Now, there are a few names that are a little harder to pronounce, such as Quaeryt, Megaera, Seliora, Luara, Kiedron, or Emerya, but “Quaeryt” is derived from the Latin “quaero,” meaning to search or question, and isn’t that much different in spelling from “query.” “Megaera” is a direct crib from mythology; she was one of the Greek/Roman furies. “Luara” is actually a Russian name, and apparently is also the name of an up-and-coming young pop singer [although I used the name in print when she was only five]. And while I thought I made up the names Kiedron and Emerya, it turns out that Kiedron is a Polish name, and Emerya is Turkish, which suggest that quite a few don’t think those names are so out of line.
What the complaints about the names reveal, unhappily, is a form of cultural chauvinism on the part of the complainers, a form of “if it’s not immediately recognizable, I feel uncomfortable.” The complaints also reveal something about the way people were taught to read. While I can’t prove it, I strongly suspect that readers who have trouble with the names tend to be those who weren’t taught reading on a phonetic basis and who are thrown by even slightly unfamiliar spellings. I will also freely admit that since I borrow, if not outright steal, from classical sources [as well as others], readers with either open minds or wider educations are less likely to be put off by the references.
But while the Bard said,
“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;”
I’d have to disagree. Names do have connotations, and sometimes even denotations, that convey differences, and I believe an author should choose or create names that do so… whether or not they’re plain English or not.