I am a collector of names. Have been, ever since I was a kid. Probably because I always wished for a different one, myself. Mine wasn’t really exotic, but it was…different. Cheryl. My parents decided on the pronunciation of “Chair-yl” rather than the more common way of saying it. The way a million other people sad it…with a “SH” sound, “Sheryl,” rather than the hard “CH” sound.
So when I began writing, I knew my characters had to have ‘good’ names—names that fit. Names that weren’t too strange, but not too common. Names that were appropriate for the time period, the setting, and the culture.
The hero, of course, had to have a name that was also something that could be whispered by the heroine in the throes of passion, yet something that would be tough enough on the villain’s lips to strike a modicum of fear in his heart, just by uttering it.
Because I was writing historical western romance, I decided to pull up a chart that would give me an accurate “slice of life”—possible names for my heroes. According to US Social Security records, the top ten names for men in 1880 were: John, William, James, Charles, George, Frank, Joseph, Thomas, Henry, and Robert.
Okay, I could maybe work with the top four. In fact, the first book I ever wrote was about a gunslinger of this time period called ‘Johnny Starr.’
And William could be shortened to ‘Will’—still masculine; but never ‘Willie.’ James—very masculine, and unwittingly, calls up the rest of the line—‘Bond. James Bond.’ At least, it does for me. I could even go with Jamie. Charles is pushing it. George, Frank, and Joe are names I have and would use for a minor character, but I’d never use those for my hero. They’re somehow just too ordinary. Thomas? Again, a great secondary character name, but not a show-stopper. Henry…eh. And Robert is just ‘okay.’
I fast-forwarded a hundred years to 1980. Here are the top 10: Michael, Christopher, Jason, David, James, Matthew, Joshua, John, Robert, and Joseph. Four of the same names were there, though not in the same poll position. By 2009, only William remained in the top 10. John had fallen to #20, James to #17, Joseph to #13. The others had been replaced, not all by modern names, but most in the top 10 were surprisingly “old fashioned.”
2009: Jacob, Michael, Ethan, Joshua, Daniel, Alexander, Anthony, William, Christopher, Matthew.
This told me something. If you aren’t too wild with the names you choose, you have quite a lot of choices! We know that Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Daniel, and Matthew were Biblical names. Just because they weren’t on the “top 10” list in 1880 doesn’t mean they weren’t being used—a lot!
Another source of names for that time period is family records. If you go back through old family documents, it’s amazing to find some of the odd names that cropped up.
Still maybe not ‘protagonist’ material, but your secondary characters could benefit. And who knows? You may find the perfect ‘hero’ name!
No matter what you choose, remember these rules, too:
1. Sound and compatibility—Say your character’s name aloud. Does the first name go well with the last name you’re using? Be careful about running the name together—“Alan Nickerson” or “Jed Dooly” may not be good choices. Avoid rhyming names such as “Wayne Payne”—and try to stay away from cutesy names that might make your hero the focus of ridicule.
2. Uniqueness—I’m sure my parents were only trying to be ‘unique’ by pronouncing my name differently than the other 99.9% of the people in the world would automatically say it, but you don’t want your hero to have such an odd name that readers trip over it every time they come to it. Louis L’Amour was a master at coming up with ‘different’ names that were simple. Hondo Lane, Ring Sackett, Shalako, Conagher…and the list goes on.
3. Genealogy—Does it play into your characters’ storyline? If so, you may want to come up with a neat twist somehow on a common name. In my first manuscript, Brandon’s Gold, the gunfighter, Johnny Starr, is named for his father, but the names are reversed. His father was Thomas Jonathan Brandon. He is known as Thomas in the story. Johnny was named Jonathan Thomas Brandon. He goes by Johnny. This keeps a theme alive in my story of the ‘fathers and sons’ of this family, and their relationships. It weighs heavily, because Thomas is dying, but Johnny doesn’t know it. They’ve been estranged for many years.
When Johnny’s own son is born, his wife, Katie, changes the name they’ve decided on just before the birth. She makes Johnny promise to name him after himself and his father, Thomas Jonathan, bringing the circle around once more, and also completing the forgiveness between Johnny and his dying father.
4. Meaning—This might somehow play into your story and is good to keep track of. What do your characters’ names mean? This is a great tool to have at your disposal when you are writing—it can be a great conversation piece somewhere, or explain why your villain is so evil.
5. Nicknames and initials—this can be more important than you think. You may need to have your hero sign something or initial something. Don’t make him be embarrassed to write his initials and don’t give him a name that might be shortened to an embarrassing nickname.
In my book, Fire Eyes, the protagonist has an odd name—Kaedon Turner. I gave him an unusual first name to go with a common last name. I learned later that Caden, shortened to Cade, though not common for the time was not unheard of. Kaedon, shortened to Kaed, was just a different variation. It sets him apart from the other marshals, and emphasizes his unique past in a subtle way.
Below are some excerpts from Fire Eyes, available through The Wild Rose Press, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. I hope you enjoy!
EXCERPTS FROM FIRE EYES:
Marshal Kaed Turner has just been delivered to Jessica’s doorstep, wounded and unconscious by the Choctaw Indians. This is part of their first conversation, Kaed’s introduction.
“Just pull.” Her patient moistened his lips. “Straight up. That’s how it went in.”
She wanted to weep at the steel in his voice, wanted to comfort him, to tell him she’d make it quick. But, of course, quick would never be fast enough to be painless. And how could she offer comfort when she didn’t even know what to call him, other than Turner?
“You waitin’ on a…invitation?” A faint smile touched his battered mouth. “I’m fresh out.”
Jessica reached for the tin star. Her fingers closed around the uneven edges of it. No. She couldn’t wait any longer. “What’s your name?” Her voice came out jagged, like the metal she touched.
His bruised eyes slitted as he studied her a moment. “Turner. Kaedon Turner.”
Jessica sighed. “Well, Kaedon Turner, you’ve probably been a lot better places in your life than this. Take a deep breath and try not to move.”
He gave a wry chuckle, letting his eyes drift completely closed. “Do it fast. I’ll be okay.”
She nodded, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “Ready?”
“Go ahead.”
*******
From Kaed’s POV—Finding out his “angel’s” name!
“I need to stop the bleeding. You were lucky.”
“One lucky sonofabitch.”
“I meant, because it went all the way through. So we don’t have to…to dig it out.” There was that hesitation again, but he already knew what it was she didn’t want to have to say to him. He said it instead.
“All we have to do is burn it.”
She let her breath out in a rush, as if she’d been holding it, dreading just how she was going to tell him. “Right. Sounds like the voice of experience.”
“Yeah.”
She touched his good arm and he reached up for her, his warm, bronze hand swallowing her smaller one. Her fingers were cold, and he could tell she was afraid, no matter how indifferent she tried to act.
“You’ve got one on me,” he muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Your name. Or, do I just call you angel?”
He felt the smile again, knew he had embarrassed her a little, but had pleased her as well.
“Jessica Monroe, at your service, Mr. Turner.”
“Don’t go all formal on me.” He paused, collecting his scattering, hard-to-hold thoughts. “I like Kaed better.”
“Better than Mr. Turner?”
He opened his eyes a crack and watched as she gave him a measuring look, her cinnamon gaze holding his probing stare for a moment. “What you’re doin’ for me warrants a little more intimacy, don’t’cha think, Jessica?”
She glanced back down at the seeping wound, worrying her lower lip between even, white teeth. Her auburn hair did its best to escape its bun.
Kaed’s thoughts jumped and swirled as he tried to focus on her, wondering disjointedly how she’d look if she let her hair tumble free and unbound. And her eyes. Beautiful. A man could get lost in the secrets of her eyes.
Maybe he should’ve used a word other than intimacy.
I’m still in the thick of revisions for The Outlaw’s Return (LIH, February 2011), but the end is in sight. That means I’m thinking about the characters for my next book. The heroine’s easy. This is Book #4 in a four-book series, so Caroline already has a personality and a problem. She was widowed shortly after the War between the States, and she’s wanted a family of her own for years.
He’s exasperating. He’s accustomed to being obeyed, and he’s terrified he’ll leave this earth without providing a mother for his two not-so-adorable children. (Change that: the kids will be a little adorable…maybe “a lot” adorable by the time I’m done.)
y invested in large herds that grazed freely on the open tracts of government land.
rge herds, the pasturage was overgrazed. Investors wanted a better return, and the beef prices didn’t cooperate. The biggest blow came with the winter of 1886-87. It was disastrous. Ranchers lost up to 80% of their stock in the worst winter Wyoming had ever experienced. By the 1890s, the British were pretty much gone from Wyoming.
The first piece of sage advice my mentor gave me when I took my first writing class … write what you know. That has proven to be so true; however, you don’t have to be a down and out, dirty gunslinger or cussed outlaw to write a scene about robbing a bank and high-tailing it off to parts unknown with your gang.
My second riding experience was on an ol’ work pony named “Blackie.” I have no idea how wide he was, but I had to stand on the tail of a pickup to get on him and my feet never touched either stirrup. I looked like a cheerleader doing the splits on the back of a horse. I slipped right off, more like a boulder crashing down a gully, and never tried riding again. Of course, everything I write has to have horses. Duh, how could those good looking hunks of horseflesh, excuse the pun, get around? But, I had to research and talk to experts, in order to make my readers believe that I really can recognize the south end of a north bound gelding.
My story in the new anthology is called “One Woman, One Ranger” and is set in Old Tascosa, the second town settled in the Panhandle, although I had to change the name somewhat to fit my story. Several kernels of history from actual accounts of Old Tascosa, germinated into a story about how the highfalutin’ folks of Upper Tascosa wanted to make sure the rowdy, detestable citizens kept their distance in Hogtown, or Lower Tascosa. They would have never associated with people named Rockin’ Chair Emma, Boxcar Jane, Slippery Sue, and Gizzard Lips. Thus, for my story, Old Tascosa became Buffalo Springs along with its seedy residents restricted to a part of the town across the creek known as Buffalo Wallow.
Mobeetie, originally named Hidetown and still referred to today as “Mother City of the Panhandle”, evolved from buffalo hunters’ camps and from the nearby Army post, Fort Elliott. In the beginning (1875), it was the legal, business, and social center for this part of Texas. The town faded when the railroad bypassed it two years later; and in 1890 when the Army abandoned nearby Fort Elliott (the only military post ever established in the Panhandle), the town withered further. What remained was totally destroyed by a cyclone…today I think it’d just be called a regular ol’ tornado.
But before its demise, Old Mobeetie was a favorite “recreational town” for itinerant adventurers, cowboys, buffalo hunters, and freight haulers. There were gambling houses and dance halls, each with lots of female employees who arrived by freight wagons from Dodge City, Kansas City, and St. Louis. At one time, the tiny town sported over a dozen saloons. One old-timer said that some of the inhabitants “thought about seeing how tough a place could be and still be called a town.” Soldiers from Fort Elliott lookin’ for a good time contributed to its rowdiness, as did hundreds of cowboys hitting town on payday.
“Captain” John Hance was reputedly the Canyon’s first non-Native American resident. He built a cabin east of Grandview Point at the trailhead of an ancient Native American trail he improved to allow access to his asbestos mining claim in the Canyon. He started giving tours of the canyon after his attempts at mining asbestos failed, largely due to the expense of removing the asbestos from the canyon. 
experience back country hiker said that even having been over the trail before, the time he took the trail with it in mind to report on it, he got lost five different times-by lost I mean he realized he’d gotten off the trail and had to backtrack to find it. There are miles with no discernable trail. I also, just because research is maddening, found this account of the Hance Trail.
different than the other report. So what is the truth? Ah, research! Such fun.
Some of us probably got bookstore or amazon gift certificates for Christmas, didn’t we? How many new books have you purchased so far this year? I’m guessing you already had books on your wish list and that you were waiting for them to be released. But sometimes those books just leap off the shelf at us. When I saw the cover for Her Montana Man for the first time, I was ecstatic. I didn’t think my good cover fortune could get any better. And then I saw the cover for Her Colorado Man. I experienced a moment of pure cover elation. Cover love. Cover adoration. I love that cover.
When I fill out my cover suggestions for the art department and marketing team, I select two or three key scenes from the book and describe the characters’ clothing and the weather and the time of day. And then I hold my breath. Sometimes the resulting image is nothing like I imagined, and other times it’s even better. This romantic depiction is from a scene during the Denver exhibition when Wes and Mariah dance under the stars, away from public view. You can even see the decorative lanterns in the background.
What was it that caught your eye? Something about that cover made you reach for the book. Maybe something about the back cover lured you in. Maybe you didn’t even look at the price
I think most of us have auto-buy authors – an author you buy simply because you know they’re going to deliver a story you will enjoy, no matter the subject or the cover. For me there are several of those: Sharon Sala, Anne Frasier, Janet Evanovich, Robyn Carr just to name a few.
If I had to say where most of my book buying was done over the past couple of years, I’d confess it wasn’t done in stores, but online. Convenience is the reason – and because –sadly — the chain stores carry less and less of the mid-list books. At least one huge chain store near me (Target) no longer carries Harlequin or Silhouette lines!
But there’s something about looking at those covers…something about picking up that book, seeing it in person…up close and personal, covers are enticing. For me — If it has a western or an Americana look, I’m a sucker. There was a day when many readers would buy any book with Fabio or John DeSalvo on the cover. I’m probably in the minority of romance readers who aren’t impressed by cover models. In fact, if I recognize the guy on the front, it’s a complete turnoff for me. He has become a model in my eyes, not the fantasy hero I want to meet for the first time and fall in love with. I guess that’s it–a recognizable face spoils the fantasy.
And FYI: Desceptive cover, Catherine Anderson’s newest book Early Dawn is a western!
I grew up in West Texas, in Mitchell County. So far, I’ve used my hometown of Colorado City as the actual setting for only one of my books. But all of my westerns, whether historical or contemporary, are set in fictional towns in that part of the country. Its wonderful history fuels this writer’s heart and imagination.
My parents moved to the ranch in 1945, a year after they were married. Soon Daddy became the ranch foreman, a position he held until his death over fifty years later. The ranch had six thousand acres which my dad, my brother, and one or two hired hands worked—raising around three hundred head of Hereford cattle and farming cotton.
Isaac turned over the running of the ranch to William L. and went back to Illinois to tend to the wire business and harvest at his farm. William L. began searching for a herd. He found it two hundred miles away in the Texas Panhandle. He purchased 800 head of cattle from J. F. “Spade” Evans and acquired the brand which is shaped like a short-handled spade. Thus the ranch became Renderbrook Spade, generally known as Spade Ranch.
My thanks to Cheryl St.John and the ladies of Petticoats and Pistols for asking me to be a guest blogger.
