Guest Post: What’s in a Name? by Paula Messina

 

Please welcome back Paula Messina to the blog today…

 

 

                                                                               What’s in a Name? by Paula Messina

 

When someone asked why I’d dubbed the main character in the novel I’m writing Donatello Laguardia, I had an easy answer. That’s his name.

My answer isn’t a cheeky as it seems. I could not change his name now if I wanted to. Donatello Laguardia comes from a family that loves music, including opera. They’re avid readers of the comics, history, and mysteries. They’re also baseball fans. An Italian-speaking student of ancient history, Donatello makes a mean marinara sauce, decorates cakes in his father’s bakery, and solves murders.

Donatello’s last name is Laguardia because it’s his father’s, who inherited it from his father. In other words, it’s his roots, roots that go back to the 12^th century. Guardia means guard. As the first born, Donatello is tormented because he did not protect his beloved brother and sister. In other words, he failed as a guard.

I learned pretty far into the novel why his parents named him Donatello. He is their gift from God. As torn and battered as Donatello is, he’s still their God-given gift.

I select my characters’ names carefully. I’m in what I hope are the final edits of the novel. If I were to change Donatello or Laguardia, I would need to go back to the beginning and do major rewrites. I don’t mean the old search and replace. I would have to change my character’s personality, his back story, his family tree. Any change would make him a different person.

Names define who we are, where we belong. They say where we and our ancestors come from. Without a name, we’re strangers, nothing more than “hey, you.” This is also true of the characters we create and read about.

Sherlock Holmes would be a different kind of genius if his name were Sherrington Hope, Arthur Conan Doyle’s first choice. Sherrington doesn’t begin to convey Sherlock’s energy, genius, and persistence. There’s something dynamic about Sherlock. Sherrington sounds like a man with a monocle in his right eye sitting in an overstuffed chair by the fireplace mumbling to himself. Sherrington would never rush toward danger. He’d hightail it in the opposite direction.

Ebeneezer Scrooge wouldn’t be “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner” if he had a different name. If Dickens, who is nonpareil in the name department, had named Ebeneezer Pete Bates, A Christmas Carol would have a different tightfisted misanthrope.

George Bailey by another name wouldn’t save his brother from drowning or marry Mary Hatch or keep Mr. Potter from turning Bedford Falls into Pottersville. Not even the angel Clarence could make someone with another name do those things in exactly the same way. George Bailey did them. No one else.

Names also place a character in time. The names Adelaide, Bathsheba, and Clara are more likely to appear in a 19^th century novel than a twenty-first one. Whereas no one was named Nevaeh, heaven spelled backwards, two centuries ago. It became popular after a musician named his daughter Nevaeh in 2000. Then it sprouted like mushrooms after an autumn downpour. Nevaeh peaked around 2012, and has since fallen off in popularity.

Names can suggest setting. Zhang has Chinese origins just as Ben-Zion has Israeli ones. My novel is set in Boston’s North End during World War II when a large Italian and Italian-American population lived there. Mr. and Mrs. Laguardia are immigrants, and their children were born here.

To avoid confusion, I steer clear of names that look or sound alike, and I make sure no two characters’ names start with the same letter. For many readers, Dan and Dave sound the same. So do Sean and Juan or Jack Sprat and John Stat.

If a mystery has several characters with similar names or names beginning with the same letter, I’m convinced it’s a clue or red herring. When those names are not clues, I feel deceived and wonder why no one on the road to publication didn’t advise changes.

Nicknames can be used to great effect. Rock star Freddie Mercury and opera singer Montserrat Caballe, a star in her own right, sang Barcelona, the anthem for the 1992 Olympics in Spain. They went on to record an album. In an interview, Caballe instructed Freddie to call her Montse “because my very close friends say Montse to me.” This invitation to use her nickname defined their relationship.

Donatello doesn’t have a nickname. O’Toole, one of my secondary characters, insists on calling him Donnie. O’Toole rains Donnie down on Donatello every time they meet. We don’t use given names that much in conversation. If someone repeatedly says your name, it’s stifling and condescending. That person wants to dominate and belittle you. This is precisely why O’Toole refuses to say Donatello.

Names matter. I guess this puts me in opposition to William Shakespeare.

Romeo might smell as sweet if he had a different moniker, but he wouldn’t be the same person if he were Emerson or Frank or Waldo. And Juliet would be a different teenager if Shakespeare had named her Eve or Harriett or Natasha.

I won’t change Donatello Laguardia’s name. That’s who he is. Beside, he’s already threatened, “Don’t go messing with Donatello or Laguardia, or I’ll leave.”

I’d rather he stick around.

 

Paula Messina ©2024 

Paula Messina writes essays as well as humorous and historical fiction. “Fish Eyes” (Devil’s Snare: Best New England Crime Stories 2024) marks Donatello Laguardia’s print debut.