Ikons
In my first novel, Ikons: Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker, the majority of the characters bear the names of my family and their friends. When I needed Belarus surnames to populate Hutava, I used the Minsk phone book and members of Stankovo's military detachment. The name of the chief of Hutava's Mir, Mayor Voltaic, was appropriated from the Russian word for giant. In my later novels I used this method to create names for many of my characters.Banners
I can sympathize with readers of Banners: For God, Tasr and Russia. There are an awful lot of characters. I lifted quite a few names for my major characters from the state museum in Minsk: famous Russian poets, leaders and military heroes. For minor characters I made up whimsical names based on Russian nouns and adjectives. For instance, Feldfebel (First Sargent) Zortun.
* * *
Feldfebel Zartun was huge. So huge that Sergei was almost eye level
with the seated sergeant. But it was
not the sergeant’s height that upset Sergei―it was his weight. To call the man fat would have been
kind. It was obvious the sergeant had
not earned his rank through forced marches or horseback patrols. Also, Sergei thought, the sergeant’s neatly
trimmed mutton chops framing his bloated face might look fine on a parade field
or in army headquarters, but they would draw more fleas than a stray koshka if
the man ever left the post. This Sergei
knew from sad experience.
* * *
Zurtun's family name was derived from the Russian word for joke. Originally, I planned to use him for comic relief, but he turned out to anything but. Another play on words was Sergei's commanding officer in Pervosk Fortress, Polkovnik (Colonel) Rygalov. His last name was Russian for "belch" and I gave the poor guy an unhealthy dose of stomach problems.Enlisted ranks were filled with soldiers who last names in Russian described their their physical and mental bearing, such as Gunner, Screamer, Lanky, and Grief. Unfortunately, this did not help the pronunciation and memory problem, but it kept me smiling.
It was also in Banners that I introduced the leaders of the Old Believers as the twelve apostles and used Russian equivalents for their Biblical names.
Slogans
Slogans: Our Children, Our Future contained many of the characters from the first two books. Since Slogans dealt two young boys, Stepha and Vanya, the characters surrounding them were children. For the children's names I used their diminutives: Kolya, Pasha, Valki, etc. Later, when Stepha and Vanya join a gang of Polish urchins, I used street names to identify them. Stepha and Vanya tried to adopt street names to make them seem tougher.
* * *
After both lowered their weapons, the boy fronted them. “They call me Ryzhy, because of this,” he
said taking off his cap revealing a shock of flaming red hair. “What cha called?”
Stepha was about to blurt out his name when he remembered Kolya's
advice: Don't use your real name or
they'll think you're soft. Call
yourself something fierce. “I’m
called Medved―Bear,” Stepha said.
“And this is my brother, er, Volk―Wolf.”
* * *
Other gang members assumed names reflecting their status or physical qualities.
* * *
The brothers stood in the center of a dank
basement, lit by four flickering candles.
Ryzhy's gang had circled them, arms folded, faces grim. There was Krivoy, with just one good eye;
Kosoy, whose eyes were crossed; Riaboy, with a face pot marked by disease; and
Starik, who looked like a frail old man.
There also were two girls identified as Monashka, the nun, and Lebed,
the swan.
* * *
Will this background information help my readers if they read this post? Probably not, but at least they might be impressed by the genesis of those hard to pronounce and easy to forget names.
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