Naming

Miss Quinnault gets her name – and her lovely personality – from a friend of mine who is just the kind of person to give a bunch of traumatized girls that vital sense of stability. Usually I stick to the tradition of using place names for fictional characters – Dallington and Boughton are both located in Northamptonshire. However, Georgette Heyer fans may recognize Mr Manvers, who gets his name from an unpleasant minor character in These Old Shades, while Farmer Martin may ring a bell with Janeites.

(Image credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37026023)

I’ll probably have to mend my manners at some stage, but borrowing names helps me conjure up a round character in my own mind. A kind of shorthand, or a prop to imagination. Thus Justin’s elder brother had to be called Stephen because he died. The background to that is rather tragic – we had two Stephens in our family, and both were killed, one in the First War, the other in the Second. Now no one is ever called Stephen, the name is jinxed for us – and when writing it’s the name that springs to mind for a doomed character.