Literary Names: Great American Novel namesakes 101

Posted July 11th, 2010

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As the fiftieth anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird is being celebrated, the thought comes to mind that it sometimes can take decades for an iconic fictional character –usually one imprinted on our minds from a classic read during our formative adolescent years—to take off as a baby name.

A prime example of this is Atticus, as in Atticus Finch, that noble lawyer/father Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s novel, which appeared in print in 1960 and on screen in 1962, and yet didn’t make it onto the Social Security baby name list until 2004.  The same is true of Holden: J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield appeared in The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, but not on the pop charts until 1987.  Scarlett O’Hara (GWTW book 1936, movie 1939) didn’t hit the top half of the list until 2004—when it combined with the Johanssen factor.  And if we want to go back even further, it took Huckleberry well over a century to suddenly be used by a couple of celebs.

Below are some literary names from 20^th century American novels and plays, a few of which, like Daisy, Owen and Ethan, have already made their comebacks, others which conceivably could, plus a few that are probably too eccentric to be condsidered.

As always there’s the caveat that not all these characters were particularly likable or noble namesakes.  Some American literary names to consider, for both boys and girls, include:

GIRLS

ALABAMA –Zelda Fitzgerald, Save Me the Waltz

ÁNTONIA — Willa Cather, My Ántonia

AURORA — Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment

BLANCHE — Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

BONANZA– Tom Robbins,  Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

BRETT — Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

CLARICE — Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

CLYTEMNESTRA (CLYTIE) — William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

DAISY– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

DENVER — Toni Morrison, Beloved

DOMINIQUE — Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

ESMÉ – J D Salinger, “For Esmé—With Love and Squalor”

EULALIA — William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

FRANCESCA — Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County

INDIA – Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

ISADORA — Erica Jong, Fear of Flying

JORDAN – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

LAVINIA — Eugene O’Neill, Mourning Becomes Electra

LORELEI – Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

MAGNOLIA — Edna Ferber, Showboat

MARIN — Joan Didion, A Book of Common Prayer

MELANCTHA — Gertrude Stein, Three Lives

MOIRA — Jim Thompson, The Grifters

OUISA — John Guare, Six Degrees of Separation

NARCISSA — William Faulkner, Sartoris

ONA — Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

PHOEBE — J D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

PILAR — Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

QUENTIN — William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

REGAN — William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist

SABRA — Edna Ferber, Cimarron

SAPPHIRA — Willa Cather, Sapphira and the Slave Girl

SONO —  Saul Bellow, Herzog

SOPHONSIBA  — William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses

SUKIE — John Updike, The Witches of Eastwick

SYLVIE –  Marilyn French, Housekeeping

TANIS –  Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt

TEMPLE — William Faulkner, Sanctuary

THEA — Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

VEDA — James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce

VESTA — Theodore Dreiser, Jennie Gerhardt

ZEENA/ZENOBIA — Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome

BOYS

AMORY –  F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

ARKADY —  Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

ARLISS – Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

ATTICUS – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

AUGIE –  Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

AUGUSTUS –  Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

BINX –  Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

BRICK –Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

CASH –  William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

CLAY –  Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero

CLYDE –  Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy

DARL –  William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

DION –  Eugene O’Neill, The Great God Brown

EBEN –  Eugene O’Neill, Desire Under the Elms

EBENEZER –  John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor

ETHAN –  Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome

EUCLIDE  –  Willa Cather, Shadows on the Rock

EUPHEUS –  William Faulkner, Light in August

EZEKIEL – John Cheever, Falconer

FELIX –  Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Cat’s Cradle

GRAY –  John Grisham, The Pelican Brief

GUITAR –  Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

HOLDEN –  J D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

HUD  — Larry McMurtry, Hud

JABEZ – Stephen Vincent Benet, The Devil and Daniel Webster

JETT — Edna Ferber, Giant (shown)

JURGIS –  Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

LEANDER – John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle

LOCH –  Eudora Welty, The Golden Apples

MACON – The Accidental Tourist; Toni Morrison, Song o f Solomon

MILO — Joseph Heller, Catch-22

MOSES –  Saul Bellow, Herzog

OWEN –  John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

QUENTIN –  William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

RUFUS –  James Agee –  A Death in the Family; James Baldwin, Another Country

SENECA –  Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt

VALENTINE –  Saul Bellow, Herzog

WICK –  Willa Cather, My Ántonia

WING –  Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio

WOLF – Jack London, The Sea Wolf

YANCEY –  Edna Ferber, Cimarron

ZOYD –  Thomas Pynchon, Vineland

DO YOU HAVE ANY FAVORITES TO ADD TO THE LIST?