Literary Names

How about this survey: How many of us have named pets, or even children, after favorite literary characters? I'll start, shall I?

My husband and I decided a couple of years ago to see if we could keep a dog alive before trying to have children. He wanted a border collie and so that's what we got. Since it's slightly more his dog than mine (although I love her dearly too, of course), here's how we came up with her name: my husband's name is Tomm and his mother loves to call him Tommy (much to his chagrin), and I love Agatha Christie's crime-solving duo, Tommy and Tuppence, so we named her Tuppence.

OK, your turn now...

I used to have two black moor fish - they were called Othello (of course!) and Iago.

I had a beagle named Annika, after the sweet little girl next door in Pippi Longstocking. I think it was the big brown eyes.

I have a cat named Nora, for Nora Charles of The Thin Man -- though honesty compels me to admit that I'm a greater fan of the film version of the character than the one in the book.

My old dog (deceased) was named C.D., short for Crackerdog. Tis came from James Herriott's books in which one of his clients would complain, "Trickie-Woo's gone crackerdog." He was a vet and crackerdog meant that the dog had flatulence.

4 Cayce

I love The Thin Man! Never read the book, though.

Also, I like your username :)

And to make this more on-topic, not a literary character but my cat is named Asimov after (obviously) Isaac Asimov.

In selecting a name for our daughter, my husband and I chose Jordana, the name of a character in the book Exodus by Leon Uris. I pictured a tall, dark-skinned, strong woman with long black hair blowing in a breeze while standing by the Jordan River.

My daughter is tiny, skinny, and (probably) weak with dark brown very curly hair which she ties up in a bun at her neck. She prefers not to leave the house and is rarely at riverside, if at all. Her skin turns dark on the few occasions she makes it into the sun. I suppose she also sometimes stands in a breeze. :D

I thought the name Jordana was lovely. To this day, when she tells people her name, they comment on how pretty it is!

#5 - bluesalamanders, thanks! Until reading your comment I had overlooked the fact that I've also named myself -- or rather, my LibraryThing self -- after a favorite fictional character.

My LT user name, Cariola, is from The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster.

My cat is named Rafe, which is a common name for scampy boy characters in early modern British drama (which I teach). There are Rafes in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Thomas Dekker's The Shoemakers Holiday.

I had a cat named Emma after Madame Bovary and a parakeet named Dylan after the poet Dylan Thomas.

I once owned a kitty that I named Jane (Jane Bennet), but I had to let the kitty go once we found out that I was deathly allergic to it.

My husband and I plan on adopting two corgi's (I know I'm not allergic to dogs) once we are out of school. I have always known I would have one female name Lizzy (Elizabeth Bennet), and the other named Fitz (Fitzwilliam Darcy). Yeah, I know it's a little corny, but I love Jane Austen

I once owned a kitty that I named Jane (Jane Bennet), but I had to let the kitty go once we found out that I was deathly allergic to it.

My husband and I plan on adopting two corgi's (I know I'm not allergic to dogs) once we are out of school. I have always known I would have one female name Lizzy (Elizabeth Bennet), and the other named Fitz (Fitzwilliam Darcy). Yeah, I know it's a little corny, but I love Jane Austen

My next two cats will be named Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley.

I once had two budgies named Sam and Twitch for the two cops in the Spawn comic books.

My two cats were named Scarlett and Melanie from Gone with the Wind. As in the novel, Scarlett was (is) the boss, and unfortunately Melanie is no longer with us.

My folks let me name one of the family cats when I was in high school. Having just read the Odyssey I decided to name her Penelope. The name fit reasonably well -- that kitty was very pretty, well behaved, and tolerant. And she often managed to find clever ways to get what she wanted.

No pets right now. Only work, school, travel. Hence: my laptops: Chevette (bright red Acer Ferrari) and Molly (silver gray slim-case HP).

(Hi, Cayce!)

Moriarty is a nice name for a cat. Also, Carbonel, from Barbara Sleigh's book.

I also have a super secret perfect dachshund name I simply can't share.

My cat is Maggie, short for Maggie Muggins. Sometimes I call her Mugs. Maggie Muggins was a 1950's/60's radio and TV show here in Canada, which I barely remember - but my mother used to call me that for a pet name. There were books that went with the series too.
Another cat, who my ex has custody of, is Finnegan, also named for a character on a popular Canadian children's show, Mr. Dress-up. I believe there are story books about Casey and Finnegan. And the ubiquitous Tigger from Winnie the Pooh - he's the cat that changed me from a cat-disliker to a cat-fan.

Sometimes a person also names children after authors. I suggested Jessamyn (after Jessamyn West) to one of my close friends. It suits her daughter (an avid reader) very well.

I gave my son the middle name "Geoffrey" after Chaucer.

I've been following this interesting thread, thinking it didn't apply, mostly because I was thinking about pets (Snowball & Muffin aren't exactly literary names!)

It was only in reading #18 that I "remembered" that we chose my daughter Julia's name from Brideshead Revisited...

I have two kitties, one named Pippin (Peregrin Took, when he's been bad) and Arwen. They are both very appropriate to their namesakes. Pippin, the 'meezer, is a rambunctious little troublemaker who gets into everything, and Arwen, a grey tuxedo, is my dainty little princess.

We gave our sons names with family significance, and don't have any pets, but I use favorite authors, characters, and musicians for some of the many passwords I have to use.

I had a (recently deceased) corydoras catfish named Toby for the character in Alex Haley's Roots.

My middle child is Alice Dorothy. We liked the Alice in Wonderland reference, but we mostly just chose it because we liked the name. Dorothy was my grandmother's name--it wasn't until after she was born that it occurred to us that we'd given her two of the more well-known names in children's literature!

My middle child is named Larissa, after Larisa in Doctor Zhivago (the book, not the movie). The extra 's' was meant to placate the in-laws who were horrified we were considering a 'communist name' (I told them it was Russian; this was 1982). I had romantic notions that we would call her 'Lara', instead, we called her squeaky, Reesh, Reeshie, or Reesha (we pronounce her name La-ree-sha).

No kids yet, but I know they will all have author/character names. My car is named Shadowfax (after Gandalf's speedy steed).

My friend's horse was named Skuggfaxe, too! (Swedish take on Shadowfax.)

#25 & 26: I love that idea: for me, it would be a bit of a laugh for my car to have that name, since it's such a clunker! What was the name of the hobbit's pony? That would be a more appropriate choice for me...

My dog was named Franny after the Salinger book Franny and Zoey.

My oldest child's middle name is Abigail because I was reading The Three Musketeers and the book kept mention the abigails and my wife and I thought it sounded good with the first name we had picked out.

Our long-lived Siamese was named Tashtego, from Moby Dick, and an earlier cat was named Hodge, after Dr. Johnson's. The Westie previous to this one was Tampopo, but she predated the noodle Western -- just named after the flower (dandylion).

>27 scaifea:: scaifea
My cars name is funny because it is a clunker. It's a 13 year old, hand-me-down minivan. So Shadowfax is a bit of a joke.
What can I say, I can't afford a great car because I spend all of my money on books!

#30 bookworm12: ah, the story of my life as well - if I had enough money to buy a new car, I'd probably just by a whole new library.

#27 wasn't it Bill? I remember a local rock band called Bill the Pony, back in the day when Tolkienesque names were cool.

When I was ten years old I owned Tabitha the twitchet liqourice allsorts lollipop patches - can you tell I have problems making decisions.

I then had my cat thug and the next cat - who was a siamese - was thugglesworth the second. We also owned Cleo the cockerspaniel - quite fitting as the look she would give when begging for table scraps would have mad you think she was suicidal.

I also owned billy de boid - my budgie (named after a poem my mother would say - I think its Irish0.

My two clown fish are named scarlett and rhett :) And my two present cats are Einstein and Galileo.

My little brother was named Tristan after Brad Pitt's character in Legends of the Fall. That's not literary but...

Previous to mom and step-dad deciding on the name Tristan, I suggested it after reading some generic fantasy book. The king's name was Tristan. Therefore despite their coming up with a different reasoning behind the name after the fact, I can claim credit for naming my youngest brother. I don't see him as much anymore as I used to, but when I do I make sure I remind him that because of this, his soul probably belongs to me or somesuch. Being an older brother is fun.

...

Oh, and like probably a lot of other people, my first cat was named Hobbes. We named the second one Calvin, but later found out she was actually a female.

#32 Jim53: BILL, yes, that was his name! Absolutely perfect for my beat-up old Jeep!

#33 keren7: I used to have literarily named fish too (mine were 2 Betas): Vertreten and Darstellen, after Gayatri Spivak's use of the philosophical terms. I was in grad school at the time and was really struggling with Spivak's stuff - I thought the fish would somehow help me get smarter I suppose...(they didn't, of course).

I read The Egypt Game as a pre-teen and learned that the word for "cat" in Egyptian was "Bastet," and since cats were worshipped in ancient Egypt and seemingly have never forgotten it, I named the family's next cat Bastet. She had a long and worshipful life, and kept herself apart from the common cats. LOL.

I named my daughter Lara in 1968, based on the "Dr. Zhivago" film, not the novel, which I've yet to read. "Lara's Theme" is still one of the most beautiful songs ever written, and my daughter is one of the most beautiful human beings that ever was.

I used to have a friend when I was just little who was called Tiggy. Yes, her mum was a Beatrix Potter fan and had named her for Mrs Tiggywinkle!

>34 jordan7hm:: jordan7hm wrote, We named the second one Calvin, but later found out she was actually a female.

Did you call her Callie then, as a literary reference to Middlesex? :-)

No kids for me yet, but I really love and hope to use the name Cordelia - it has 2 significances, King Lear and also what my beloved Anne of Green Gables desperately wanted her name to be. (And, okay, as my husband keeps pointing out, she's also an Angel/Buffy character...)

#40: tinylittlelibrarian: Ah! An Angel/Buffy fan! And Cordi is such a good character too (although she starts out mean and awful, but the near-end of Angel she's quite lovely). Uh, best not to get me started talking about things Buffy, though...

#41: scaifea - I'm actually a Buffy/Angel fan-come-lately. I didn't watch them when they were originally on, but late-night Angel reruns got me hooked and now I'm addicted to the DVDs. And that's how I feel about Cordi, too - it was a bit weird to see how she ended up so lovely on Angel and then go back to the very beginning when I started on the Buffy DVDs and see what she was like in high school! But that's off-topic, sorry, gang...

#28 inkdrinker: we named our daughter Esmé, not specifically after the Esmé in Salinger's For Esme-with love and squalor, and Other Stories, but at the same time I probably had her in mind.

We've got a boy on the way now who we'll probably name Eliot.

In my list of names for the baby coming in the spring, I have Judah-The Red Tent and Liesel-The Book Thief.

#44 ladybookworm: I *love* the name Liesel! And congrats and good wishes for the baby - my husband and I have just started trying for one of our own (I've already picked our possible names, although he doesn't know it yet!)

40-tinylittlelibrarian

I love Anne of Green Gables! I was thinking if I got a female cat (which I nearly did) I'd name her Lucy Maude. Now however my uncle's naming his daughter Lucy, so maybe I can't. (I don't think he's naming her after Montgomery though. :D )

My current cat's named Royal, after Royal Tennenbaum. Not literary, but ah well. I have yet to have kids, and I'm sure I'll have more pets down the road so I still have plenty of time to utilize names from literature. :)

46- reptiliancandy - Yay, another Anne fan! :) Lucy Maude definitely would've been a cute kitty name.

I love both The Royal Tenenbaums and The Book Thief. Great name choices guys!

My daughter's name is Lenore, which of course is a nod to Edgar Allan Poe. One of my sons' middle names is Emerson, to whom my children are related.