Naming story characters

[hazel43]

Are there any special guidelines to fallow for naming the characters in a story. Yesterday I began writing a BDSM story.
The setting is in a disciplinary corrections facility for women, sometime during the 18th century.
The girl is Cheryl.
Her parents are Mr. and Mrs. Webberly.
The head master of the school is Master Thomas.
His head nurse is Nurse Lankford.
Is there any reason why it would not be suitable to use these names.
Thanks for any thoughtful replies.

 

[CrimsonMaiden]

You can name your characters anything you wish.

 

[Guest]

You can name your characters anything you wish.

Yes, but it seems Hazel is ambivalent and as she gives us some details I suspect she is concerned with accuracy of some sort. Not knowing in what country the story takes place I'll mention just a couple things. If in England I don't believe there were women's prisons in the 18th c. Prisons were mostly used as holding facilities for those awaiting trial. Criminals were then executed or sent to Australia, whatever their gender. (An interesting book is The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and Its Cargo of Female Convicts by Sian Rees.)

I don't kinow that the term "nurse" would have been used outside the home, e.g., a governess or children's 'nurse'. Certainly it was not a profession as we know it. Lastly, I haven't researched it but Cheryl does not sound an 18th c. name; just my opinion.

If set in the U.S., prisons began here based on the British system, to deal with the underclasses and poor (vs. criminals as we think on today). "Debtors prisons" should be a familiar term. After the civil war the system obviously had to change.

Hope this wasn't more or not at all what you wanted.

Perdita

 

[ferociouskittycat]

Character names is a personal thing, although, some names work better than others.

Being a Dom/Domme story, you wouldn't want to give the Master a sissy sounding name. Also, the sub should (in my opinion), have a softer sounding name.

Stories, such as sci-fi, or medieval... need names to suit that era.

Edit: what perdita said.

 

[nushu2]

Perdita is right, as usual.

Only thing I could add is that 18th century prisons were coed but there were "labour mills" for orphans and women. French bastilles were infamous for political prisoners.

I can't think of any women's prisons until the 20th century but I'm no expert. Women didn't have rights before then. Sorry, just a fact. There are 18th century stories of women being "marked" and shunned or burned as witches, but weren't considered as much more than posessions, legally. The exceptions were royalty. It was a bleak time for women, unfortunately.

Perhaps, it might be easier to alter the time of your story rather than change the characters.

 

[Guest]

Nushu, you made a good point I forgot to include; prisons were co-ed, so to speak. 'Naturally', the women prisoners were exploited into forced prostitution, even for the male prisoners (as they were on the ship of the book I noted above).

Perdita

 

[pop_54]

Yep I think Cheryl is a bit young for the 18th century... stick with biblical and old names if you can... most people named their kids after a saint or biblical character... or used a traditional name from their cultural background.

Mary / Anne / Elsie / Elizabeth / Agness / Martha / and such old names for girls.

Jonathan / John / Frederick / Micheal / Peter / Paul / Henry / and such for men... Preferably do as you are doing and use old fashioned surnames for the men... Thomas / Smith / White / and a few elaborate ones with Saxon place name connections... Appleton / Barton / Middleton / etc. You'll get away with most things with 'ton' on the end.

 

[R. Richard]

One thing I would like to politely point out is that the naming of characters in a story that has some resemblance to (particularly) recent historical events can be a bit tricky legally.

It is often wise to include an 'all characters in this story are ficticious' disclaimer.

I don't think that there is any danger in the story you described, but it is easy to stumble upon a historical event where the person(s)/descendants of the person(s) want to see you in court.

 

[hazel43]

Thank you Crim, perdita, ferociouskittycat, nushu2, pop_54, and R. Richard. It is wonderful to be getting so much attention.
My fantasy story actually takes place in a place and time that only exists in my mind.
It could be like a recent episode of the new Star Treck series called Enterprise.
The show depicted a pre-20th century culture that exists on a planet in a galaxy far away from here.
I Hope these names won't cause any people to get upset. The characters flowed out through the same inspiration that produced the story itself.
Right now, I'm just a college student with very little money. If someone does decide to come after me, they will just have to get in line behind the credit card collections agencies.
I will look forward to our future interactions.
Thanks again!

 

[ferociouskittycat]

"I'm just a college student with very little money."

No, you're not.

You're a person setting yourself up for a promising career.

Good luck with your story. When it's done, please post a link on here so we can read it.