Names to remember

I was still a rookie in my newspaper career when I wrote an obituary for a man named Harley Zarley. I have long forgotten the names of most of my father's cousins, aunts and uncles, but I do remember Willow Dondillo, although I never met her.

For those with odd names, it may seem like a curse, but they are likely to live longer in memory than someone named John Smith.

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens realized this, which is one reason he gave odd names to so many of his characters. The other reason is that he simply liked odd names and collected them in the way someone else might collect stamps.

Some Dickens characters, such as Uriah Heep and Ebenezer Scrooge, are familiar even to people who have never read the stories in which they are found. But the strange names were intended for the benefit of his readers. Most of his novels were first published in serial form, a few chapters a month. In addition, there were many characters and many plot lines in each novel, making characters and their role in the story difficult for readers to remember. Outlandish names helped.

Yet Dickens wanted more than just an odd name. He searched for just the right odd name. In his book The Artful Dickens, reviewed here a few days ago, John Mullan (whose name would never have made it into a Dickens novel) says Dickens made lists of possible names for characters before deciding on the perfect one. Often he would take two unrelated words and stick them together. Before settling on David Copperfield, for example, he tried such possibilities as Trotfield, Copperboy, Flowerbury, Topflower and Copperstone.

Before Martin Chuzzlewitt, there was Martin Chuzzlebog, Martin Chuzzlewig, Martin Chuzzletoe and even Martin Sweezlebach.

I am presently reading Bleak House and discovering such names as Bouncewell, Pardiggle, Bayham Badger, Skimpole, Lady Dedlock, Tulkinghorn and, my favorite, Prince Turveydrop. The novel might still be a pleasure to read even if the characters had names like Smith and Jones, but certainly not as much of a pleasure.