[Soulcrusher]

As the headline suggests this is about names.

From reading many many threads and reviews, especially regarding The Black Company series and ICE's books I see that a fair amount of people have issues with characters names ie; Croaker/One Eye, Kyle.

Personally I couldn't care less about the names, in-fact I quite like all the names i have ever read, especially in the malazan/company series, where names are either random or profession based.

I suppose I'm curious why it's such a big deal for people and in some cases a deal-breaker to have a somewhat odd name in a hood-damn fantasy book.

[Puck]

I find this weird, too. After reading so much Malazan and Black Company, I have actually the opposite issue in that 'normal' names in fantasy settings feel kind of weird to me.

Maybe it's an issue for many people because real world names (and those similar or similarly constructed ones) give a feeling of familiarity in an otherwise new situation? Like all those things we don't need to have expained to us, or how, say, having something that's clearly a horse not being named a horse alienates many people? It sure does me and I's just as certainly couldn't say why.

Saying descriptive names like Croaker or Fiddler or whatever sound out of place, of course, completely disregards where our own real world names came from, but eh.

At the same time, the reverse happens when you've read a certain number of Malazan books and have gotten used to the Malazan way of naming characters and suddenly, Kyle comes along. It just sticks out like a sore thumb, as it's not just a 'real world' name, but also breaks the phonology of those Malazan world names we've gotten used, in a way that even names like Ben and Kalam don't.

Just my two cents, though.

This post has been edited by Puck: 30 July 2016 - 06:43 PM

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

I agree about Kyle. His name just doesn't fit. I had the same problem with Kyle Katarn in the Star Wars EU.

[worry]

But why doesn't "Ben"?

[Egwene]

It is about association, about what comes to mind when the reader hears a name as well as the reader's background is my guess - plus, ultimately, personal likes and dislikes about the sound of a name.

If someone in your family names their baby and you know a person of the same name whom you don't like, it can take a while before you get used to not associating the name with that other person.

Kyle is a name that people associate with some high profile real life people, there is also the association with the female version Kyleigh which at one point was a bit of a fashion name, so the name is maybe too familiar all round.

Here in the UK, names like Fiddler and Croaker won't be at all problematic for people in the military as they likely know half their comrades by similarly concocted names and I am guessing the same applies to similar bodies of men elsewhere. But some people are totally unfamiliar with that kind of nickname or nicknames full stop, so they may find it more difficult.

The personal like and dislike - well, refer you back to my first example of naming a baby. How many couples spend hours arguing about the name? Some people prefer well established names others like to make one up from scratch.

It is good that the Malazan world doesn't just have one type of name - if we liked all of them equally, it wouldn't be just a fantasy world but an almost-impossible-to-exist world, lol.

Which in fact it is - because like in almost all of writing, you hardly ever get two characters with the same name. Now how likely is that in the real world????!!!!!

[Slow Ben]

Names have power.

-Harry

This post has been edited by Slow Ben: 30 July 2016 - 10:32 PM

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Kanyemander West, on 30 July 2016 - 07:50 PM, said:

But why doesn't "Ben"?

I've wondered about that, and the idea I knocked around that sounded best to me is that we all carry connotations around names, based on people we've known throughout our lives. This colors our views of all names. When we see those names somewhere, we instantly ascribe those connotations to the people bearing said names. This wouldn't really help to explain why so many people disliked the name Kyle, unfortunately.

EDIT: I posted this before reading Egwene's comment, and I agree with what they wrote.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 30 July 2016 - 09:53 PM

[nacht]

I feel Kyle is a special case in that the choice of name immediately strengthens the Farm Boy turns hero trope.
Seasoned fantasy readers have an aversion to this trope and hence might have an aversion to Kyle.

Now Bilbo Baggins goes the other way and helps ameliorate the effect of the trope.

Despite all the worlds he appears in, Kyle's character remains a clueless guy with a magic sword.

Contrast this with the development of Ganoes Paran, who still makes a gigantic jump from nobody to master of deck and therefore is a variation of the same trope but is a much better character overall.

[Hetan]

For me, it's about immersion - it's how I read books, and anything that sounds "off" knocks me out of that immersion - Kyle does that in a big way. It's just not Malaz and never will be for me.

[Esa1996]

I've never been bothered by that but I actually really like the way Bakker does his names in The Second Apocalypse. Most of the names there are really strange (Anasurimbor Kellhus, , Cnaiur urs Skiötha, Drusas Achamian etc.) but they sound and look cool though they are far from real names.

[Felisin Fatter]

Kyle just sounds like a boring american/english/canadian kid. Probably blonde. Then we learn he hails from a tribe of steppe dwelling air-spirit worshipers. So the name makes no sense. Name him Zephyr or Grasshopper or Grey Eagle Junior, any tribal sounding name. (I know these are lame examples, but I'm not writing the book... tbh I couldn't finish it because of many distracting things, 'Kyle' being one of those.) Now he just doesn't feel as if he belongs in this world, as if he comes from a real tribe with a culture and history. I suspect I have this problem with most of ICE's chracters, it might be why I find him so hard to read. His characters don't seem to belong, they seem disconnected from the world they live in. Does that make sense to anyone else?

This post has been edited by Felisin Fatter: 31 July 2016 - 07:19 PM

[ArchieVist]

His full name is actually Kylarral-ten and it's just Kyle for short. I sometimes wish ICE had spelled it Kyl instead. Though I have to admit that at this point, just as repeating a word over and over again can cause it to momentarily lose its meaning, I don't even notice Kyle as standing out any more.

I get more annoyed at the fantasy naming trope of throwing extraneous apostrophes into everything, which Malazan does in spades.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Kyl would have been so much better. Even Kylar (though we already have Kylar Stern, but hey, who's to say names can't overlap between series?)!

[worry]

But I think 'Kyle' is a joke. You may or may not like the joke, but the "this earth name sticks out like a sore thumb" reaction is kinda the point, in the sense that "making sense" is a moot point. Of course a fantasy world might happen to produce a human being named Kyle...it's just as self-conscious a decision when other fantasy worlds avoid it. So it's poking fun at the convention, as much as any other goofing on tropes our boys carried out.

This post has been edited by Kanyemander West: 01 August 2016 - 03:11 AM

[James Hutton]

Esa1996, on 31 July 2016 - 11:51 AM, said:

I've never been bothered by that but I actually really like the way Bakker does his names in The Second Apocalypse. Most of the names there are really strange (Anasurimbor Kellhus, , Cnaiur urs Skiötha, Drusas Achamian etc.) but they sound and look cool though they are far from real names.

It's the exact opposite for me! All those 4 to 6 syllable names of semi-important characters that aren't fleshed out at all. You just named 3 of the maybe 6 characters that aren't cardboard (IMO); all the other princes, rulers and military officers of the surrounding lands that got incorporated in the march south... I couldn't keep them apart. Especially with such unpronounceable names.

[Gorefest]

I, for one, have no problem with Kyle. So now that that's solved: what's up with all these glottoral stops? Or apostrophes that aren't glottoral stops but I now just read them as such because so many others are.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 01 August 2016 - 03:21 PM

[Esa1996]

James Hutton, on 01 August 2016 - 12:53 PM, said:

Esa1996, on 31 July 2016 - 11:51 AM, said:

I've never been bothered by that but I actually really like the way Bakker does his names in The Second Apocalypse. Most of the names there are really strange (Anasurimbor Kellhus, , Cnaiur urs Skiötha, Drusas Achamian etc.) but they sound and look cool though they are far from real names.

It's the exact opposite for me! All those 4 to 6 syllable names of semi-important characters that aren't fleshed out at all. You just named 3 of the maybe 6 characters that aren't cardboard (IMO); all the other princes, rulers and military officers of the surrounding lands that got incorporated in the march south... I couldn't keep them apart. Especially with such unpronounceable names.

I had the same problem in keeping many of the princes and kings apart on the march south though I still like the names Bakker creates. Whether the characters are fleshed out or not is somewhat dependent on whom you ask, though I tend to agree with you in that Bakker doesn't have all that many characters I'd call fleshed out.