Saturday, July 11, 2009

Juno MacGuff and Ferris Bueller

I was watching a re-run of Juno on the television last week when I realized that Juno, apart from being a well-written screenplay, can claim another of the hallmarks of great writing. The naming of characters. Juno MacGuff hits the bullseye. You know, when you hear the name, that you’re onto something. Now I don’t have a degree in Advanced Phonetics, but what does it for me is not the associated meaning of the name, rather than the sound of the name. How it reverberates in your skull. Some names just have a ring to them. Dickens has his detractors but nobody can deny that he was simply a genius when it came to character names. Consider Uriah Heep, Pip, Samuel Pickett, Fagin, Oliver Twist – each one etches itself into history. Call him what you will but Dickens was the Master of Nomenclature. While at it, I decided to, compile a list of my favourite character names. Character names, not to be confused with characters.

In no particular order

Juno MacGuff
, from Juno
Scout/ Boo Radley/ Atticus Finch, from To Kill A Mockingbird
Holly Golightly, from Breakfast at Tiffanys
Holden Caulfield, from Catcher in The Rye
Milo Minderbinder/ Major Major/ John Yossarian from Catch 22
Lennie Small, from Of Mice And Men
Ferris Bueller, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Captain Jack Sparrow, from Pirates Of The Caribbean
Lemony Snickets, from A Series of Unfortunate Events
Optimus Prime, from The Transformers
Uriah Heep, from David Copperfield
Bill Sikes, from Oliver Twist
Buzz Meeks, from The Big Nowhere
James Bond, from Casino Royale
Samuel Pickwick, from Pickwick Papers
Pip (Phillip Pirrip), from Great Expectations
Oliver Twist, from Oliver Twist
Phillip Marlowe, from The Big Sleep
Shylock, from Merchant Of Venice
Huckleberry Finn, from Huckleberry Finn
Jay Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby
John Constantine, from the Hellblazer comics
Jimmy The Saint/ Critical Bill from Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead
Anakin Skywalker, from Star Wars
Morticia/ Uncle Fester/ Gomez/ Wednesday/ Thing from Addams Family
Caliban, from Tempest
Howard Roark, from Fountainhead
Jack Carter, from Get Carter
Sancho Panza, from Don Quixote
Ponyboy, from the Outsiders
Hawkeye, from Last Of The Mohicans
Bertram Wilburforce Wooster, from the Jeeves stories
Mufasa, from Lion King
Santiago from Old Man And The Sea
Marcellus Wallace, from Pulp Fiction
Cap Rountree, from The Daybreakers
Jubal Sackett, from Jubal Sackett

9 comments:

ken said...

none from India?

Champion Kickah said...

Not deliberate. However, phonetically speaking, I have to say, I hate most names with Sanskrit roots. They just sound dreadful. There will be the odd word here and there but mostly I can't relate to words of Sanskrit origin. Names of Arabic/ Islamic origin are beautiful. Ali Baba, Djinn, Sinbad - there's a certain rhythm, a cadence to the language. Some sounds are beautiful by design, some are not. Like, I don't think there are any stylists or too many well known poets who write in guttural German. Whereas, English, French and Arabic lend itself to beautiful expression. Indian languages mostly fall in between. Not as poetic as the English and Arabic but not as bad as German. Except Kannada. Which is one of the worst arrangement of human sounds ever put together.

purple rose of cairo said...

I like the early Woody Allen names

Virgil Starkwell
Miles Monroe
Fiedling Melish

and of course Jasper Larmarr Crabbe

Anonymous said...

Eli Cash

That has to be my favourite character name of all time.. and of course Royal Tenenbaum, Raleigh St. Clair, Henry Sherman, Ari and Uzi Tenenbaum.. okay you get the point – the film is filled with ace names. Obvious, yes. Classic, definitely.

Ari Gold said...

The Coen brothers should rule this! Of theirs, I’d pick Bernie Bernbaum and Barton Fink (and maybe throw in Jesus Quintana to name another Turturro role). Or any name from Fargo.

Besides the Coens and ones already mentioned, I’d add Lemmy Caution (although Godard stole that from some crime novelist).

Champion Kickah said...

ari/ purple rose - I couldn't agree with you more. Both Woody Allen and the Coens were truly gifted when it came to naming their characters.

Anonymous said...

From Don Asher's article "Confessions of a Name Dropper", Harper's magazine ..

"Photographer Imogen Cunningham named her three sons Rondall,Gryffyd and Cadriac.The meter is hypnotic,raising an echo of Shadrach Mesach and Abednego, the three men thrown into the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar."

Ill send you a copy of this article.

H2G2 said...

There's a fair bit of evocative naming in JK Rowling's books too:

Severus Snape
Ron Weasley

Gryffindor / Ravenclaw / Hufflepuff / Slytherin

These sort of indicate the kind of characters in them and the behaviour to expect from them!

mentalie said...

tsk, champion...you have missed out on a world of inspiration by shrugging away the desi. you'll spot classics all around you if you just unblock your mind a little. for instance, i was running down a friend's stairway the other day and was thrilled to the cockles of my heart to find that mr. c.h.utani lived in flat 203. what joy.