What's in a Name by Victoria Chatham

 

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All novels are populated by characters and those characters need names. With writing historical novels, or novels set in other countries, characters' names require a little more attention. Are the names appropriate for their era or country? 

As an author of historical romance, I have most of my work done for me as all I need do is Google the popular male and female names for any given year and go from there. Please note: Google is a starting point, not the be-all and end-all for any type of research. Visiting cemeteries, especially historic ones like Highgate Cemetary in London, the final resting place of Karl Marx and George Michael, can be fascinating. Visiting a country churchyard is always a voyage of discovery, especially you wander amongst the older headstones. 

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 I have also used parish records like this one from my own family history.

Because my settings are mostly English, I can pinpoint the county my characters populate and run a list of names for that area. My next Regency romance, Charlotte Gray, is set mostly in the New Forest in the county of Hampshire, England, so I researched both first names and surnames from that area in the early 1800s.

Once I have a list of names, I consider how easy those names are to pronounce and if the first and second names not only fit together but also suit my characters. Into that mix, I must consider the intricacies of the British peerage if I include lords and ladies in my books. Burke’s Peerage is an invaluable resource for this.

People were often named for the trade in which they were skilled like the English surnames Smith, Baker, Archer, and Tyler, or after the towns or countries from where they originated like York, Hamilton, or French.

First names were often handed down from father to son, mother to daughter, which could get confusing if you had a long line of Edwards or Marys and even more so if, like the boxer George Foreman, all his five sons were named George. Today it seems anyone can name a child anything and sometimes seems more by fancy than reason.

What I find frustrating is when I come across a name in a book and have no knowledge of how to pronounce it. Here again, the internet is a useful resource, especially www.howtopronounce.com. Type the name in the search field ‘and listen to the result.  If you are using an invented name it is only fair to your reader to qualify it in some way for the reader to easily understand it.

Names, whether real or imagined, need to be a solid anchor for readers to identify with characters and, hopefully, come to know and love them.

Victoria Chatham

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Mankind on Earth by Katherine Pym

 Begotten: A history fantasy of ancient Sumeria, based on scholarly papers from archeological digs.

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~*~*~*~

 How often have you watched television where a man stands in front of the camera, and waves at a big clock? 12AM is the creation of earth. Going around the clock, you are shown various ‘beginnings’, and around 11:56PM, man is born.

 I found an old issue of National Geographic.

Apparently, evidence indicates man has been around for a little longer than we thought. According to the January 2015 issue, we’ve been producing complex cave art for more than 100,000 years, short by way of the existence of our planet, but longer than scientists had earlier stated. And you never know if those signs of man saw evidence of sentient life before them.

 Stone relief on uncovered ruins

In recent years, ruins have uncovered man’s ingenuity long before we ever expected. They say Turkey’s Gobekli Tepe predates Stonehenge 6,000 years, which is believed to have been constructed around 3,000 BCE. That makes Gobekli Tepe alive and bustling at least 11,000 BCE with peoples who were not loping around like beasts. In order to build, live in, then purposefully bury a city means even more years, possibly 12-14,000 years ago. Who could have done this, when many believe the pyramids around the world are the earliest constructions known to man? 

Location : South Eastern Turkey

I have a theory: Homo sapiens of one sort or another have existed on this earth for a very long time. They may not have been our species of man, but different bipedal forms of have come and gone over the eons. Some of them may have bred with other forms of our species, stayed around for a time, left their mark, while others may have come and gone with only a small blip on the radar. 

 

Early cave art

 Then, there are so many legends that mark our folklore/mythologies that must have come from some sort of reality. These origins have either been lost in time or added to fairy tales.

dolmens in water

 What about the dolmens in Brittany that march toward the sea? Stories say they come alive every once and awhile and romp with we earthlings. Then, when it’s time for them to return to stone, any humans still dancing in their midst will also get caught, and turned to stone. There are quite a few out of alignment which can only mean men and/or women have been caught at the wrong time. My grandmother told me this, brought down from her grandmother.

There’s an obscure, ancient lore of a door that stands on a hillside where gods enter our world from their heavenly domain. Where did this come from? Where were they before they entered our world? Did they walk out of the mists onto our earthly soil from another dimension? Did they come to our turf and seed their humanity with ours, then leave and seed other planetary peoples?

Door to the gods?

 Look at those pictures etched into the dirt of the Andes that have marked the earth for eons. Who did those? (Since these are copyrighted, I’ll give you a link or two to click on: )

 As small as I am, I could not draw a picture of such magnitude that would have any decent straight lines, curves, and circles that is seen from 10,000 feet. Could you? Oh, and I know what you’re thinking. This is an idea promoted by the Ancient Alien theorists, but maybe they aren’t completely off base. After all, even Carl Sagan said there were ‘billions and billions of planets’ out there. Could they all be empty of sentient lifeform? Even if someone with technology did not draw those pictures, then the people of the time were really very tall.

 What will be revealed once the ice sheets melt? They are, you know. Melting. Not sure why. What if the ice thaws to reveal ancients lifeforms? We don’t really know what happened before man came to this planet, how we came. We only know we are not alone. Our movies and television stories are filled with possible answers to all these questions.

 We are curious. If we thought we were truly alone, we would not be looking at the stars, wondering of our origins.

 Would we?

~*~*~*~*~

Many thanks to Wikicommons & National Geographic

 

Walpurgis Nacht

 

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Walpurgisnacht is said to be named after an early Christian woman (Saint Walpurga, 710-779) who was missionary to the Black Forest German pagans. Like most saint's stories, I take it with a grain of salt. 

More likely, Walpurga was a wise women or, perhaps even a female divinity of place. If you can't at first get rid of those old gods and their generosity with a good time, the early Christians soon found that these local holidays were easily co-opted. Taking over a night of bonfire and dancing is not too hard, but you have to discourage (first with threats and then by fire) the far older fertility rites of liberated sex in the woods. (Imagine! Women running wild!) Among the English, you'll family names of Robinson or Green or Grove are common, and are often said to have had their origins in babies born after a spring fling in the forest. 

This is one of the stories within Roan Rose, whose heroine is born into the just such a peasant community.

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For humble farm folk, the older traditions often quietly continued. After all, the New Religion allows you to repent whatever indiscretions you've committed during the night at the next morning's Saint's Day Mass! Alcohol, a good party and warm weather are stimulants to the young who, in all ages, are universally singing "Born to Wild" after any big celebration with the opposite sex present.

This Walpurgisnacht, or Hexennacht, ("witches night,") falls midway between the summer solstice and the equinox and were therefore once commonly named "Cross Quarter" Days. Like Samhain (Halloween/Hallow's Eve) May Eve is considered another "time between" when the "veil between the worlds" is thin. So, besides a party--if you were inclined to celebrate--you might have a picnic or leave food for the spirits of place, or "bring in the May" by decorating your home with flowers and greens just as my mother showed me long ago. These quieter alternatives to that blow-out bonfire are more in order where I live and to the state of my elder body. However, from sundown on April 30th until sunrise on May 1st, the old rule, bar the caveat "'an you harm none" was: Do what you will!  

While researching the habits of 18th Century Vienna, I learned that there, Saint Brigitte was the proper Lady to celebrate on May 1st. The similar name indicates that she may be a form of Brigid, the ancient Celtic triple goddess of artistic creation, rebirth and renewal. In my reading I learned that so many tried to leave the city for picnics and flower picking in the surrounding fields and woods on that day, that there were, by the late 1770's, traffic jams. Once, I read, the Emperor Joseph himself could not get out of town on one particularly carriage-clogged May Day because he did not drive out sufficiently early in the day.  

In My Mozart, the teen heroine has a name day on April 29th. She attends a fateful party in the Vienna Woods with the louche fellow players from her new workplace, a Volksoper, where she dreams of the blazing kiss of Orpheus.

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In Zauberkraft Black, the hero, a little drunk and sorry for himself, stumbles upon just such a party among his tenants the first night of his homecoming from the Napoleonic Wars. He finds a great deal more is going on there than simply drinking and getting lost in the new green woods with a willing farm girl.  How little, this gentleman will find, he has known his own peasants!

 

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It's probably pretty clear by now that I love this holiday and still keep it with flowers, new loaves of bread, and a of wine. On Saturday too I will pick up a few more native plants from a local Conservancy group--all very formal this year because of Covid--and bring them home to my yard. (Please grow, My New Darlings!)

  Welcoming spring and giving thanks for the seasons while whispering a few prayers for a bountiful harvest can't, at any time or place, be a bad thing. These days, Mother Earth is in need of all the good vibes we can send to her.

~~Juliet Waldron

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What's In A Name by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

The origin of names goes so far back into history, there is more than one truth or theory, depending on the era, the culture, and what part of the world a character comes from.

 What is clear is that names mostly stemmed from a need for identity and connection within families and communities.

People were often named for the trade in which they were skilled like the English surnames Smith, Baker, Archer, and Tyler, or after the towns or countries from where they originated like York, Hamilton, or French.

First names were often handed down from father to son, mother to daughter, which could get confusing if you had a long line of Edwards or Marys and even more so if, like the boxer George Foreman, all his five sons were named George. Today it seems anyone can name a child anything and often seems more by fancy than reason.

As an author of historical romance, I have most of my work done for me as all I need do is Google the popular male and female names for any given year and go from there. Please note: Google is a starting point, not the be-all and end-all for any type of research. I have also used parish records and names found on tombstones to be full of information, too.

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Because my settings are mostly English, I can pinpoint the county my characters populate and run a list of names for that area. My next Regency romance is set in the New Forest in the county of Hampshire, England, so I am currently researching surnames from that area in the early 1800s.

Once I have a list of names, I consider how easy those names are to pronounce and if the first and second names not only fit together, but also suit my characters. Into that mix I must consider the intricacies of the British peerage if I include lords and ladies in my books. Burke’s Peerage is an invaluable resource for this.

One thing that I find frustrating is when I come across a name in a book and have no knowledge of how to pronounce it. In this instance Google is my friend, as you can search ‘how to pronounce’ whatever the name is and listen to the result. That is why I would never use an invented name in any of my books unless I can qualify it in some way for my reader to easily understand it.

In my current work in progress, a contemporary western romantic suspense, my female character is Callie. Where did that come from? Her mother (like mine!) loved calla lilies, so I have worked that into the story. It is just a small detail which I think (hope) gives my character a little more reality.

​Victoria Chatham

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Mothering

Find my books here

My first memory as a reader was of my mother reading a wonderfully illustrated copy of The Wizard of Oz when I was suffering with the mumps. I was so enthralled that I forgot all about my achy body. Ah, the power of story!

I dedicated my first published novel to my mom, because the best thing the novel taught me was how much I loved her ... as much as the heroine loved her mother. Ah, the power of storytelling!

I lost my mom this month. She died peacefully just shy of her 102nd birthday.  

Conceived during the last world pandemic, she grew up in the Devil's Kitchen of New York City in an apartment full of love but very little money. She married my dad at 17 and became a professional mother of 10, grandmother of 29, and great grandmother of 20. The youngest is our little Desmond and they are 100 years apart. 

My mom's name was Kitty. She had many adventures. Her life is full of story.

Revolutionary War Rambles

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Fellow BWL author Kathy Fischer-Brown and I took several trips into the rich historical area of upstate New York and one into New Jersey. I had seen re-enactments before, but Kathy loved these events, and being with her and therefore in good company, it made these experiences even more fun than before. As Kathy is gone now, and taken all her knowledge and wit with her, I'm dedicating this blog to the fun we had -- not to mention all the discomforts of travel on a shoestring -- we shared together. 

If you are into the Revolutionary War, all these photos are of places and things that set a writer's historical spider-senses a-tingle. Re-enactors are an amazing source of period information. These are the kinds of touches that can truly flesh out a story, if only you take the time to ask questions and then listen while you trudge through roasting summer days, wondering at how our linen and wool-covered informants aren't fainting.

This is Kathy at the front door of the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, NY, where the Schuyler sisters grew up. I found those fascinating ladies back in the 90's when I wrote my Hamilton & Eliza story, a Master Passion.

Put brackets "" around mansion, though, as any number of modern monster McMansions are larger. Back in the 1770's though, this home was an outpost of Europe, with linoleum "rugs" over the wide board floors, as well as woolen carpets and ornate wallpaper imported from France. This house sat on the edge of a still truly primeval forest, filled with wolves, bears, beaver and many tribes of First Nation's people.    
 

We thought he was amazing! Anyone who writes novels in this time period, even with the slightest brush of the romantic, has imagined this fella and his well-behaved palomino. I will admit that we waved and called to him hoping he'd wait for us so that we could take his picture. He was most gracious, even though women had probably been harassing him all day.  :)

Here's an operation I wish I'd known about earlier, simply for the colorful language. These artillery people are engaged in a hither-to unknown (to me) operation called "puking the cannon." Cold water is poured down the hot barrel after a fight, to be sure it's clear inside and not accumulating gun powder residue. Sure enough, the cannon hisses and then "pukes" out a long jet of scalding water. Now the cannon is cleaned and we also know that it has not cracked. Cannons blowing up was part of the hazard of the artillery companies. As Hamilton spent the first years of the Revolutionary War as a humble artillery captain, this would have been a familiar duty. 

 

The inadvertent humor of re-enactment, present all the time, is in this juxtaposition of 2015 and 1776. The macadam, too, is often a reminder of where you really are, no matter how hard you are exercising your fantasy bone. 

 

Kathy and the surgeons, British camp. These gentlemen showed us their instruments and we talked about wound care and the damage a pistol's .54 caliber ball could do to a leg bone or a chest. 

Inside Fort Ticonderoga with an officer with whom we "held discourse." Another memorable horse, very patient and obviously used to this kind of all-day nonsense.  The green jacket on the officer makes me believe he was playing a Tory officer, a British loyalist, but Kathy can no longer tell me of  what regiment. She had all that kind of information on the tip of her tongue.  Her "The Serpent's Tooth" trilogy draws a great picture of the divided loyalties of American colonists of the time.

That's me, tactlessly wearing an Alexander Hamilton t-shirt into the grounds of Fort Ticonderoga's  "King's Garden." I got called on this a lot, especially when we were visiting the Royalist encampments.  

Magnificently terrifying Iroquois warriors, speaking with a soldier at the British market.  

Ticonderoga cannons, overlooking Lake Champlain. Both of us lugged our cameras and water bottles.

Here is Kathy with a friend. Jenna, a marvelous teacher, and is also an 18th Century seamstress, making period clothing for both men and women. She also made stays, which is, as it was then, an expensive clothing item, very difficult and time-consuming to make. Jenna's friends were also talented seamstresses and dedicated to the re-enactment life. I adored seeing their little ones, all dressed up and quite ready to join in the camp out game their adults were playing. 

Here, we got a talk on the progress of the battle--back at Saratoga again--which was a three day affair with weeks of skirmishes both before and after in the countryside near Albany. Some of the young men were,, in their modern lives, historians, teachers or in forestry. Others were employees of the the Park Service.

Here's Jenna again, playing another role, as sutler, vending produce to the army. Many of these veggies ended in a big pot at the fire for re-enactors' suppers.  Camping is a big part of the experience.  

Mom and a pair of siblings. Big sister is an invaluable help corraling the little one! Here the women are portraying "women of the army," soldier's wives and children, who always slogged along in the baggage train of 18th Century armies. Women had no other option than to follow their husbands. Any army of that period had children in the baggage train too. The women worked as laundresses and cooks for the troops. Wives got a soldier's half ration and the children were allotted quarter rations. You can imagine how hungry--and ready to join up--the teen boys were! 

Saratoga cannon appreciation.

Bullet making

Officer and wife have a confab. 

Below, we're at Monmouth, where young men were cooking in an earthen oven. They are also baking salt rising bread in this interesting construction, which was dug into the soft sandy soil of the site. The fire was in the largest hole with separate tunnels dug to direct heat onto other pots set above ground. Monmouth Battlefield that day was a period correct 90+ degrees.  Kathy and I were sweating in our t-shirts and shorts and constantly wondered about how the re-enactors were faring inside all that wool. More soldiers, I've read, died of heat stroke at The Battle of Monmouth than died from wounds. 

Here's Kathy, speaking with a charming doctor and surgeon at Fort Ticonderoga. Here's how I will remember her, asking questions, talking history and, if questioned, citing sources, holding her own with these equally history-drunk gentlemen.   

Kathy Fischer-Brown's author page