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Feb
16
Weekly Geeks 2009-06: What's in a name?
2009 at 1pm Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
For this week’s edition of Weekly Geeks, we’re going to take a closer look at character names. What are some of your favorite character names?
Go to Google or a baby name site like this one or this one, and look up a favorite character’s name. What does their name mean? Do you think the meaning fits the character? Why or why not?
If you’d like, look up your own name as well and share the meaning.
I’m going to start with my name, Rebecca, which is also the title of the classic novel by Daphne du Maurier . The websites all seem to agree that my name is a derivative of the Hebrew “Rivka.” It is listed as meaning “to bind” or “to tie.” I’ve always thought it was weird that someone would name their daughter something that means “to bind” because it sounds so restrictive. Though, I suppose if you think of binding as bringing together or uniting, it works for me.
Apparently, there’s also some dispute over the meaning of my name that “revolves around competing images associated with the management of livestock: ”manger,” ”noose” and ”cord.” This site also says it might mean “heifer.” Um, no thanks.
From BabyNamer:
In the Jewish scriptures, Rebecca is a character known for her beauty and cunning. Abraham, the Patriarch of the Jews, obtains her hand for his son Isaac. She is embroiled in the conflict between her twin boys Esau and Jacob, and encourages Jacob (her favorite) to deceive his father and steal his brother’s birthright.
Rebecca and its nickname Becky have been a steady presence in literature for a number of centuries.
I like having a name that has historical significance and is well known but not overly popular. I’ve met several other Rebeccas in my lifetime, but there was never an abundance of us the way there was with, say, Jennifers. (Not that there’s anything wrong with the name Jennifer…I just like being kind of unique.) I’ve read Rebecca and remember loving the gothic story, but the details seem to have escaped me.
As I mentioned in last week’s Weekly Geeks, The Scarlet Letter is one of my all-time favorite books, and it has some interesting and (now) uncommon names. Let’s start with Hester, which means star or myrtle tree. This is a derivate of the biblical Esther, in whose honor Jews celebrate Purim. I don’t see any connection between the Bible’s Esther and Hawthorne’s Hester, and I’ve always thought it was a very dowdy name for an adulteress. Hester’s daughter is named Pearl, which means “the gem,” and this makes a little more sense in the context of the story since Pearl is described as quite an attractive child.
Semicolon had a great review this weekend of another of my favorite books, Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow. One of the main characters is named Emilio, which means “eager.” I really like this name, and I think it fits the character’s personality. He is willing and eager to take on the adventure and to ask the difficult questions about faith and belief that his experiences raise.
I also love love love John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, and now that I know that Owen means “youth,” I have to wonder if it had something to do with Irving’s choice of the name. Owen Meany is both jubilantly youthful and quite an old soul, and I think this name fits very well. I love this book so much that I’d always thought that if I had kids, I would name my son Owen. Little did I know, my sister-in-law also loved this book, and she beat me to it! So, I’ll never have a son named Owen, but I’ll always have a great nephew, who is the very embodiment of “youth.”
Finally, when I read The Help a couple weeks ago, I was really intrigued by Skeeter’s real name, Eugenia. It means “aristocrat” or “of noble descent,” and while it certainly fits Skeeter’s parents’ perspectives and their desires for her, she breaks out of the mold…but that’s kind of obvious, since she has a nickname like Skeeter instead of, say, Buffy.
What do your favorite characters’ names mean? Visit Weekly Geeks to play along.
Great post. I always thought Eugenia was a pretty name.
Very interesting post
I read Rebecca last year, and loved it. I also loved The Sparrow and agree with your take on Emilio.
Happy Weekly Geeks
Wow!! This was an excellent post!! Loved it!
I was so excited when I first read the novel Rebecca – it was great reading a book with my name emblazoned on the cover!
And I always got teased in elementary school about being “Becky Thatcher,” Tom Sawyer’s girlfriend. “Rebecca” was a very unusual name back in the 1960′s – I never knew anyone else with my name until high school.
I love Owen Meany too – a great book!
I’m glad you just blogged about names, because in another blog I read, the girl just wrote about how she loves books about first names. She needs some recommendations but doesn’t particularly like asking book sellers because if they think she’s pregnant, it can create an awkward situation. ANYWAY, if you have any suggestions (she wrote some more particulars about what’s she’s looking) and it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you, would you be willing to help her out? Her blog is: http://cndrnh.blogspot.com/
Thanks
)
Sarah
My parents used to have an old book called “What Not To Name The Baby” that contained amusing baby-naming advice. Like, “If you name your daughter Gertrude, people will call her either Gert or Trudy depending on whether she becomes smart or cute.” Or, “If you name your son Eric, he will keep asking everybody where the action is; but the only one who knows where the action is is Jimmy, and he’s there.” (Although I can state that, even though I am a Jimmy, I never knew where the action was.)
I too liked The Scarlet Letter very much.
Thanks for the infoon Hester!
Names and more names
[...] the tacky Valentine’s Day cards I exchanged with hubby (who definitely won this one), a Weekly Geeks discussion about the meanings of my favorite characters’ names, a meditation on book storage for BTT, [...]
[...] that’s not always the case. If not for a recent Weekly Geeks activity, I’d never have known that Eugenia means “aristocrat,” and I can’t [...]