Names Week : #QueerBlogWed
Hello and Happy International Celebrate Your Name Week!
Every day this week has a different focus on names—from Namesake Day, to Discover What Your Name Means Day (which is today!), to Unique Names Day. This site has a fun rundown of them all! As someone who spends a lot of time making stuff up, yesterday and today are my favorites. Since I’ve already talked about what my name means to me (you can find that post here) I’m going to concentrate on Unique Names Day.
If you’ve read my books you might have noticed that most of the characters have common names. I have a Ross and Miles, Eric and Tim, Colin and Alonzo, and Nathan and Paulie. None of those are particularly unique names. I also have an Ellred, and a Cayman, and in my WIP a Harper and a Windy.
Looking at that list it’s obvious that when I started writing I made up more names than I have in the past five years! I’ve known Ellred—Red—since the early aughts (probably around 2001), and Windy since 1995. It’s been fun to bring them forward from the family saga I’ve been working on (between projects) since 1995. In that story Red had a walk-on part, but in Speedbump he’s the star (well, almost, the story is a little more Ezra’s than his 😊).
Cay, you’ll meet this summer but I will tell you this—he understands what it’s like to go through life and never find his name on a ready-made key chain or Christmas ornament. I know what that’s like, so Cay also has a name that is found on T-shirts and shot glasses—if you ignore what comes directly afterward. I had a little fun with that in my upcoming novella Always Forward! (Never Straight).
Since I’m not at the point where I’m comfortable posting about my WIP, and Always Forward! hasn’t been edited yet, I’ll leave you with an excerpt from one of Red’s chapters in Speedbump that fits the week!
But first, I’d like to hear from you: What is the most unique name you’ve heard—or made up? If you don’t have one of those, create one, or share what your name means to you.
Unfortunately, the next voice I heard wasn’t Brett’s. The guy I’d almost ridden off the road was talking and didn’t care if I heard. “What kind of a name is Red anyway?”
I decided to answer with the truth. If I was really talking to Ezra, what difference did it make? “Short for my given name. Ellred. All us boys have unusual names.”
Ezra looked up, and Tink pointed his scowl across the room, not at me. Maybe that was a win?
Ezra’s laugh sounded high and giggly. Maybe the way Tink made everything a pissing contest amused him? “But what about Richardson? How did you get that? That’s not your given name.”
I sat on the floor, near Ezra’s head but not too near, and tuned the guitar to itself. I’d tuned it for real before leaving for the pizza place, so it wasn’t far off. “Needed a new name, and my dad’s a dick.”
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Charli Coty 