Names of Danger

I’ve named hundreds over people over the last ten years, all of them fictional. Some felt more alive than others. Then my wife got pregnant and we knew we'd have to name something for realz and 4 LIFE.

As with naming a character in a story or novel, choosing a name for our child involved a mix of general parameters and gut reactions.

Our parameters were:

a) if possible, the name should reflect the Italian heritage of my wife’s family (since the kid would have my distinctly un-Italian surname)

b) the name needs to be easy to pronounce and spell, and not get too mangled by the Kiwi tongue

c) the first name needs to sound okay with “Cliff” – a difficult task with any kind of name, but Italian ones seem particularly unsuited to such an abrupt, concrete surname as mine.

In order to find the baby name El Dorado, my wife and I scoured the internet. Few names of either gender fit all three requirements, and fewer still seemed to meet the gut-check.

We were then handed a copy of Il Libro Dei Nomi Di Battesimo, a baby name book from 1969 (though our copy was the 1976 edition), all in Italian. My mother-in-law warned us that some of the names may be outdated, but even if we were naming our child the Italian equivalent of Mable or Enid, it’d only be an issue when they travelled to Italy. These things tend to go in cycles anyway.

The names in the book are divided into sections, such as I nomi dei Santi (The names of the Saints) and La mitologia (mythology). One of the sections was titled I nomi pericolosi, which I translated as “Names of danger” or “Dangerous Names”. I checked with my wife and that was her interpretation too. Even Google Translate agreed.

How cool would it be to have a dangerous name? La Tigre Cliff. Toro (Scatentato) Cliff. Nitroglycerina Cliff.

But the actual names listed in the chapter just seemed to be virtues: Audace (bold), Generoso, Modesto. I guess the danger is if Perfetto doesn't turn out to be perfect. And a couple of the names, like Verecondo (bashful), were hard to imagine belonging to anyone but dwaves.

The real revelation for me, while reading Il Libro Dei Nomi Di Battesimo, was how utterly hideous a lot of Italian names are. Some seemed to mean things after which you wouldn’t normally think of naming a child.

Aracne? You mean, like, “Spider”?

Afrodisio, as in powdered rhino horn? Sei pazzo?

Others, like Gugliemina, are about as aesthetically pleasing as a mildewed drainpipe.

I guess I’d always subscribed to the belief the Romance languages were beautiful and expected all the names to be light and lyrical (the girl names at least). And, as we ended up having a girl, I think it’s important she know how lucky she is that we were mildly discerning and didn’t name her any of these gems from the pages of her Nonna’s book:

Adolfina
Agar
Aldegonda
Amelberga
Bradamante
Calpurnia
Cunegonda
Ediltrude
Edvige
Euterpe
Fannia
Fosca
Fruttuosa
Fulgenzia
Fulvia
Grisvolda
Lutgarde
Mafalda
Marfisa
Ninfa
Norberta
Obdulia
Ombretta
Osvalda
Primitiva
Proba
Publia
Pudenziana
Pulcheria
Pupa
Radegonda
Severa
Sofonisba
Sveva
Ubalda
Ughetta
Ulderica
Urania
Valburga
Wally

My favourite has to be that run of P-names. Maybe one day I’ll write a fairy tale where the heroine has six ugly sisters named Primitiva, Proba, Publia, Pudenziana, Pulceria and Pupa… Pupa. I just love saying that one.

So what did we choose in the end?

Lia.

It’s Italian (check), appearing in the La Bibbia chapter (Bible names: it’s the Italian spelling of Leah). But some websites listed it as also being just the shortened version of names like Rosalia and Angelia. Turns out we both liked short names. And being non-religious this other derivation appealed.

It’s easy to say and sounds okay with Cliff (check, check). Sure, some people may want to spell it Leah, but at least it’s quick to spell out to correct people. Also, very quick to finger spell in NZ Sign Language!

We've already had someone pronounce it Ly-a / Liar, but no name is perfect. (Besides, her daddy does write fiction, so being liberal with the truth ain't the biggest sin.)

I’m sure the time will come when Lia runs home from school crying about the terrible names the boys (who secretly fancy her, how could they not?) have concocted from her name, and hating us, fleetingly, for our oversight.

My reply: “Well dear, you know your mother wanted to call you Ughetta, so you should count yourself lucky!”

Farewell Peka / Names #2 / Joe Cocker

Farewell Peka

I still can't bring myself to call him that ridiculous name starting with H.F.  The penguin I caught up with on Pekapeka Beach on June 22, has set sail this evening for the sub-Antarctic on board the Tangaroa. I took this photo of the vessel leaving Shelley Bay from my deck just after 6pm this evening.

In the foreground is the new ASB Sports Centre in Kilbirnie. I was one of the 15,000 people who visited on its open day on Saturday. What a fantastic facility and a great community asset! Lose a penguin, gain a stadium... Yeah, we'll be fine.


Naming Characters #2

On the subject of crap names and fantastic names, here's another article from Papers Past

ODD NAMES [Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, 13 September 1907, Page 1] 

We publish hereunder a [slightly slimmed down -- CC] selection of Odd Names. All the names are genuine, and not invented for the purpose of publication. The majority of them are taken from the records which are to be found at Doctors' Commons, Somerset House, the Probate Court, etc. England.

Temperance Dry.
Thomas Jolly Death.
Friendly Churches.
Dover Beetles.
Jonas Whalebelly.
Young Fry.
Frederick Smallbones.
Leicester Midland Railway Cope.
John Richard Pine Coffin.
Sabbath Church.
Robert Rainy Best Best.
Pickup Pickup.
Nelson Monument.
Winter Frost.
Butter Sugar.
Morning Dew.
Wilde Field Flowers.
John the Baptist Arrighi.
Christmas Day Jones.
Daft Coggins.
River Jordan.
Urbane Cheese.
Carolina Gotobed.
Petronella Frederika Mess.
Brown Fox.
Time o' Day.
Lesser Lesser.
Bride Best
Parsonage Pope.
Urbane Cook.
Christmas Day.
Honour Bright.
Jolly Death.
Henry Hot Coddlings.
Queen Victoria Burr.
Peternal Hole.
Randalina Seedlum.
Moderina Belmontina Kimberina Robertson.
Ivynest Cowmeadows.
Choice Tippling.
Ambulance Bunn.
Only Fanny Thomas Jones.
Maher-shalal-hash-bas Sturgeon.
Lily Margarine Sturgeon.
Agathos Everley Alexander Eager.
Mabel Helmingham Ethel Huntingtower Beatrice Blazonberrie, Evangeline Vise-de-lon de Oreliana, Plantagenet Plantagenet Todemag Saxon Tollemache Tollemache.
William Rains Kneebone.
Emma Sheepwash.
B. L. C. Bubb (Beelzebub)
J. L. Bird (Jail-bird)
Through Great Tribulation We Enter Into the Kingdom of Heaven Slappe.
Hurry Riches.
Diehappy Harper.
Merelthalfcar Lamb.
Kerenhappuch Death.
Jacob Choke Lambshead.
Styleman Percy Bell le Strange Herring.
Hephyibar Hibberdine.
Philbrick Frank Colechin Elliott.
Naaman Napper.
Waples Canwarden.
Tamar Anna Manship-Ewart.
John Hadnot Kiss.
Rose Shamrock Anthistle.
Baron de Roths Child.
Ann Bertha Cecilia Diana Emily Fanny Gertrude Hypatia Inez Jane Kate Louisa Maud Nora Teresa Ulysis Venus Winifred Xenophon Yetty Zeus Pepper.

Peka Post Script

I felt conflicted about going up to Pekapeka in June for a number of reasons, a big one being that it was a 'writing day'.  In the last two months, however, I've discovered that THE NOVEL will have a portion set on one of New Zealand's sub-Antarctic Islands. Probably not Campbell Island, which is where Peka will be dropped off (or nearby), but close enough. So there'll be penguins in THE NOVEL (probably not emperors, that risk 'The Shangai Knights effect' -- or whatever the animal equivalent is?), meaning it was totally research.

Phew!


Palmy's Pushkin

I have nearly finished listening to all of the New Yorker Fiction Podcasts. Get excited because I'm going to do a meaningless, subject-to-personal-taste top ten stories from these podcasts when I've finished (and probably once I'm back from Melbourne).

Anyway, today on the way home from work I listened to 'My Russian Education' by Vladimir Nabokov, read by Orhan Pamuk. In the story (which is actually from Nabokov's memoir... is there such a thing as a non-fiction short story? I reckon) Nabokov mentions his father's passions: butterflies, chess problems and quoting Pushkin -- three passions Vladimir Vladimirovic inherited.

As I walked down Houghton Bay Road I thought about what passions I might have inherited from my father. He wasn't a prominent politician like Nabokov's father (nor did he get assassinated), he was a polytech lecturer in New Zealand's sixth or seventh biggest city (depending on when we're talking about and who you ask). He didn't quote Pushkin, or any poetry, but he did 'quote' Joe Cocker (and Brian Wilson and Lennon/McCartney and Captain Beefheart...).

He took me (and my mum and his mum) along to see Joe Cocker at the Rainbow Stadium. My first ever concert.

In honour of the fifth week of disruption at my flat as the landlords put in a new bathroom, and my musical inheritance, here's Joe Cocker 'quoting' The Beatles...

A Close Reading

I went to the Wellington launch of Ian Wedde's new novel, The Catastrophe, at Meow on Friday. The next day, my column appeared in the Dom Post about Wedde's poetry, specifically 'CO Products Ltd'. You can now read my column online here, but you'll just have to ferret out a copy of Good Business to read Wedde's poem (although you can read Metalworx Engineering in Best NZ Poems 2009).

The book launch on Friday was immediately followed by a concert featuring Lawnmaster, the last ever gig by The Tenderisers (featuring poet John Newton and music reviewer Simon Sweetman), and The Close Readers (lead by writer Damien Wilkins) who claimed to have only had two rehearsals but sounded pretty tight. I'm not sure if I've ever been to as literary a gig (or as musical a book launch).

Naming Characters / Breaking News/ Run TMC / Going West

Naming Characters (the first instalment of many)

I’ve been on the hunt recently for names for secondary characters as THE NOVEL moves into a new frontier. Naming characters in semi-realistic fiction is tricky because you can’t be too outlandish or too overtly symbolic, as this diminishes the sense of (semi-)reality you’re labouring to create.

In the course of other fact-sourcing and fact-checking adventures, I came across this article on Papers Past:

ODD NAMES Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 70, 24 March 1937, Page 18

Even the name "Appendicitis," which Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, of Oklahoma, have bestowed on a newly-arrived daughter, is no more eccentric than some to be found among English gipsies [sic] seventy years ago, says the "Manchester Guardian." Talking to a gipsy woman on Stanmore Common in 1864, Mrs. Brightwen, the naturalist, learned that her name was Trinity Smith and that her family of daughters included Levise, Centina, Cinnaminti, Cinderella, Sibernia, and Leviathan. Asked why the youngest child had been given so weighty a name, she was informed, "Well, ye see, it were the name of the big ship (the Great Eastern was at first named Leviathan), and we thought it such a pretty name that we'd give it to the next boy we got: happened it come a girl, but we thought it didn't matter much, so gave it to her."

Breaking news #1

Victoria University of Wellington study reveals psychopaths prefer commerce degrees.

Hmm. I wonder how VUW feel about its psychology department taking a dump on the university’s cash-cow?

Excuse me while I control+F and delete all occurrences of “Bachelor of Commerce and Administration from Victoria University of Wellington” from my CV…


Breaking news #2

Apparently lots of people don’t know about ctrl+f . I struggle to believe the figure is as high as 90%, and I can say for sure that kids in NZ schools are being taught this skill and a bazillion other techie things in the inquiry-based curriculum... but still. Everyone should know ctrl+f! Otherwise you might as well just write everything by hand and read, like, paper!


Paid Work

The full text of my review of the anthology Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar: Stories About Work, edited by Richard Ford is now online at The Listener’s website.

Dream Teams

Geeky-sports moment: If I could choose any two NBA teams from the past to control in a video game they would be:

1. 1990-91 Golden State Warriors, aka Run TMC (Run Tim (Hardaway) Mitch (Richmond) and Chris (Mullin). It’s telling the entire team is summarised by a 3-man moniker, because Tim, Mitch and Chris basically were the Golden State Warrior’s offense for three seasons (they accounted for 70+ points a game, still a record for three team mates) and, like all GSW teams, they played no defense. Mitch Richmond is my favourite NBA player of all-time and I recently brought a vintage 90-91 Richmond #23 jersey to hang on my wall (to go with my Richmond #2 Kings jersey from circa 1995).

This adorns my bedroom wall.

2. 2001-02 Sacramento Kings. I actually had a copy of NBA Live 2002 and played a full season with this squad, but 10 years hindsight and the advances in graphics and gameplay mean this team is still a tantalising proposition. And the chance to right the wrongs of history and trounce the 01-02 Lakers? Priceless. From this approximate era, I have Chris Webber and Peja Stojakovic jerseys.

My office, featuring Peja 'Antique pistol for a head' Stojakovic

So, it was with much gasping and desk-slapping that I read about NBA 2K12, which is due for release later this year. It includes 30 classic teams from the past (lots of Celtics and Lakers…) but also, if you preorder, you will get codes to unlock two additional teams: the 1990-91 Warriors and the 2001-02 Kings.

Run TMC baby!

Meta Moment

Anyone ever noticed how I tend to rush up hodge-podge posts shortly after bearing my soul as a writer in order to push said soul-bearing further down the front page? Me neither.


Breaking news #3

Boys don’t read as much as girls.

Okay, that’s not so breaking (except heart-breaking, perhaps?). Actually, I found the article above
from Robert Lipsyte (Sam’s father!) interesting.

Inspired by my outreach events in Sydney, my Next Year’s Resolution (patent pending) is to get out to more schools and juvies and prisons and talk to young people, especially male, and show them that books aren’t all written by old people (or women).

First order of business, donate some copies of A Man Melting and Jesus' Son to Mt Crawford’s library!


Wicky Wicky Wild Wild West
The programme for Going West Books and Writers Festival 2011 is now online. I’m appearing in the session ‘Early Days Yet’ with Tanya Moir, author of La Rochelle’s Road (you can read an extract of it here) on the morning of Sunday 11 September.

Not long to go now...