We often hear that last names, surnames, once had a meaning if you go far enough back in history.  Adamson was once the son of a guy named Adam.  People named Baker can trace their lineage back to someone who actually shoved dough into an oven.  The more names I see, however, the more convinced I am that if you go back far enough you will find someone who just made up a name for themselves, and it stuck.

My last name, Grossman, was, my father believed, a product of Ellis Island.  He once said that the name in Russia was more like “Iceman.”  When my immigrant grandfather arrived at Ellis Island, the immigration gateway to America at the time, he, or one of his family, said “Iceman,” the immigration officer wrote down “Grossman,” and it was Grossman thereafter.  It may be that my grandfather was afraid to complain, afraid of being sent back.  I think it more likely that he just didn’t care what he was called.  My father’s family seemed to have had a very relaxed attitude toward things that other families obsess over.  My mother liked to say that my father never celebrated his birthday until he met her.  Birthdays just weren’t a thing in that family.  My grandfather reportedly said words to the effect of “when I want to buy you a present, I’ll buy you a present.”

In fiction, of course, all names are made up.  Naming characters is always an interesting problem to work out.  In SOCKWORLD, the main character is named Purdy Hooper.  I cannot recall now how I came up with the name Purdy.  It is not a real name, as far as I know.  There is a funny scene in the book where Purdy’s mother explains the name’s origin.  As for Hooper, I was looking for something not suggestive of any particular origin, something blandly American.   Also, Hooper is suggestive, to me, of a circle, or going in circles.  Getting dizzy is important to Purdy’s story.

I named the main bully in Purdy’s school Creighton.  That is his first name.  I think it’s important, especially when writing for young people, not to give a bad guy a name one of your readers might have.  The name Savitri, a girl in Purdy’s class who becomes almost a friend, came from a story I read in the Mahabharata, about a princess who follows Death into a forest and bargains with him to restore her husband to life.

Sometimes the names of characters have a second life as words.  Don Quixote gave us the adjective ‘quixotic.”  Scrooge became a noun meaning miser.  What does it mean to be a Purdy, or a Creighton, or a Cary Grossman?  What does your name mean?