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Guest Post: Jeanne on "What’s in a Name?"

Please welcome back Jeanne of the Bristol Public library with a few thoughts regarding author names. I have noticed the same thing. Before we get to her post, let me digress for just a moment. If my digression bugs you, skip on down the page. It is my blog so I can blab if I want to. 

Over the years my Mom has talked about the fact she did not know any Kevins so her and Dad went with that. Of course, by the time I got to public school there was a sea of Kevins. It seemed like every class had at least two boys carrying the Kevin mantle of responsibility. Every employer I ever worked for had at least two—myself and somebody else. On one job there were three of us. Management was not amused when we linked hands during a staff meeting and chanted, “By the power invested in we Kevins we shall make it so!" Of course, I was the one hauled into the office and talked to about my attitude after the meeting because, as one manager put it, “You’re the strange one.” I don’t know…maybe throwing in the Thundercats yell at the end was too much.

And now on to Jeanne….

What’s in a Name?

I noticed some years ago that I was making assumptions about people from their names in the obituary pages.  Zachary?  Probably a young person, no older than 30.  Ruby? I’d guess at least 80.  Donna?  Probably between 60 and 45.  I was right often enough that I still do it today.  I think I first noticed trends when I was in Children’s Services back in the 80s.  It seemed that every other little girl was named either Heather or Amber. In my high school the number of Brendas, Glendas, and Lindas was staggering, but apparently the “—nda” fad is over.

Some names go in and out of fashion, while others are timeless:  James, Elizabeth, Sara, Thomas, or Emily may be for an eight year old or an eighty year old.  A prominent military person used to result in many namesakes: I’ve met a number of elderly men named “Winfield Scott.”  “Lafayette” was a popular name in my mother’s family and a British friend was appalled to find out I had cousins named Napoleon.  Most of the gem names for women have gone out of style (Ruby, Opal, Garnet—though the latter is as likely to be for a man as a women) although Pearl is making a slight comeback.  The same goes for the flower names:  Pansy, Daisy, Viola, Violet, but Rose hangs on. State names have also gone by the wayside: Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, Texas, Carolina, and Nevada. Dakota is popular, but that may be from the Native American tribe rather than the states. Sherry has lost popularity but I still meet Brandys.

Note: By coincidence, today in the library’s book club, a member was reading Agatha Christie’s Pale Horse.  She was enjoying it, but she said she was distracted by all the “old” names:  she was envisioning the characters as being much older than they were supposed to be in the book. I checked, and saw that there were female characters named Pamela, Rhoda, and Eileen, all of which have lost most of their popularity but would have still been stylish when the book came out in 1961.

At my workplace we laugh because while the staff is relatively small in number there are a lot of the same names repeated.  We now have only one Nancy, but for a while we had four; we have three Susans/Susies; two Christys;  two Brendas; two Rebeccas; two Amys, with another person nicknamed Amy; and until recently, two Megans.  When I first joined the staff, confusion often reigned.  I was Jeanne, but we also had a Jean, a Jeannie, a Janie, and a Gina.  It took a lot of careful questioning to figure out who was being asked for sometimes. We joked that we weren’t going to hire anyone else who had a matching name because it was just too confusing.

Which sort of leads into what inspired this post: authors with the same first names who write in the same genre.  Years ago, I was asked to find a Christian author named Lori.  Confidently, I led the patron to books by Lori Copeland.  The patron said no, that wasn’t the right author.  This was before the internet, so I couldn’t google the info and the patron couldn’t remember anything else about the author.  By chance when shelving, I came across books by Lori Wick.

Since then I’ve noticed several other genres have multiple well-known authors with the same first name who are all actively writing.  Here are my favorites:

Thriller-type mysteries:  Look for men named Brad. They haven’t cornered the market, but they own a good chunk of it!

Brad Thor

Brad Taylor

Brad Meltzer

Brad Parks

Fantasy?  Look for a Terry!

Terry Goodkind

Terry Brooks

Terry Prachett

Female mystery authors, non-cozy?  Look for Lisa, Linda, or Karin.

Lisa Scottoline

Lisa Gardner

Lisa Jackson

Lisa Unger

Linda Fairstein

Linda Castillo

Linda Howard

Karin Slaughter

Karin Fossum

What names have you noticed?