Cairo Pritchard in "Shade and Shadow" was literally named after a dream; I woke up with the name in my head and worried for several months that I had simply overheard it from some real-life person who would mind. Probably her last name is a reflex from Susan Cooper's The Grey King (1975). Cairo, because of the ancient Egyptian necropolis. I'm guessing, but it sounds right to me.
The last name of Justin Saint-Etain in "Return on the Downward Road" is not French; Étain is a heroine of Irish myth, but I no longer remember why I thought her appropriate. I may simply have liked the sound. This accounts for several of my character names.
Adam Yves Loukides in "Moving Nameless" comments that the last person he saw named Yves was in a medieval mystery; this is Ellis Peters' The Virgin in the Ice (1982), which is where I got the name.
Josza and Gauven in "Time May Be" are both real surnames, since their world contains enough echoes of our own; Josza is Hungarian, Gauven is French.
Dylan and Mariana Beck in "Till Human Voices Wake Us" are both named after the ocean. Her name is intended to recall the Latin mare (pl. maria) "sea"; his comes from the Welsh Mabinogion, where one of the twin sons of Arianhrod is Dylan Eil Don "great tide, son of the wave."
I took the first name of Isabeau Reisse in "Singing Innocence and Experience" from a children's picture book by Jane Yolen, Dove Isabeau (1989), because I wanted something medieval-Renaissance to match the Unicorn Tapestries. It's abbreviated to Beau deliberately so that the name is a little ambiguous in gender, and I may have wanted some implication of Beauty and the Beast.
Lance Carsey in "Clay Lies Still" is named as a reflection of Lawrence Szenes-Strauss, to whom the story is dedicated.
The name of the title character in "Nights with Belilah" is taken from Jane Yolen's "Sister Death," a retelling of Lilith, since she is one of the Lilim. Theo Volpe is named after an obscure and martyred Saint Theodolus, which probably comes from Theodoulos "slave of God," but which I prefer to read from the Greek δόλος "trick, trap."
Ligeia in "Featherweight" is named after the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, although it is implied that perhaps it should be the other way around.
"Another Coming" started life as the names of its three characters, Leo, Acacia, and Quince, and I have no explanation for any of them.
Catholic Dave and Dave Felder in "A Ceiling of Amber, A Pavement of Pearl" are a nod to the various different friends named Dave whom I knew at Brandeis, like Roleplaying Dave or Asian Dave. The last name of Elias Haden is meant to recall the underworld.
Menachem in Hebrew means "comforter," hence the name of the eponymous dybbuk in love.
Both Vetiver and Demetre in "Chez Vous Soon" do not use their given names—hers is Julia; his is Lewis—but she is named for the smoky, earthy scent of vetiver oil and his allusion should be obvious.
Aster Linneman from "In the Praying Windows" is named after a poem of Plato's.
Septimus Bruckner in "A Voice in Caves" is named after the protagonist of Joan Aiken's The Moon's Revenge (1987) and the nineteenth-century classical composer Anton Bruckner.
For "Odd Sympathy," I stole the name Yedart shamelessly from Alan Garner's Strandloper (1996).
Thank you for this! Mind if I print it out and tuck it in my copy of Singing Innocence and Experience? I thorougly enjoyed seeing where everything came from, and, as usual, you've made me interested in reading the sources.
The last name of Justin Saint-Etain in "Return on the Downward Road" is not French; Étain is a heroine of Irish myth, but I no longer remember why I thought her appropriate.
Possibly because there is a more common surname "Saint-Etienne"; which is a city in France (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-%C3%89tienne) and an indie band (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Etienne_%28band%29) (not to mention, of course, a Saint (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Stephen)). The two probably sound similar if mangled by American English, causing more people to associate with the French rather than the Irish, obscuring the origin of the name. In any case, it was the logical jump that I immediately made when I saw the name.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[expresses polite shock]
...you don't say.
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I just finished reading "Nutmeg and Limestone" yesterday afternoon. Loved it, as usual. Your stories are always a total experience unto themselves.
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I'm so glad you like them!
(. . . still waiting for my copy of Say . . . what's the combination? to arrive . . .)
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Hey, I can still remember my reasons for most of them . . .
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Now I have to remember . . .
Cairo Pritchard in "Shade and Shadow" was literally named after a dream; I woke up with the name in my head and worried for several months that I had simply overheard it from some real-life person who would mind. Probably her last name is a reflex from Susan Cooper's The Grey King (1975). Cairo, because of the ancient Egyptian necropolis. I'm guessing, but it sounds right to me.
The last name of Justin Saint-Etain in "Return on the Downward Road" is not French; Étain is a heroine of Irish myth, but I no longer remember why I thought her appropriate. I may simply have liked the sound. This accounts for several of my character names.
Adam Yves Loukides in "Moving Nameless" comments that the last person he saw named Yves was in a medieval mystery; this is Ellis Peters' The Virgin in the Ice (1982), which is where I got the name.
Josza and Gauven in "Time May Be" are both real surnames, since their world contains enough echoes of our own; Josza is Hungarian, Gauven is French.
Dylan and Mariana Beck in "Till Human Voices Wake Us" are both named after the ocean. Her name is intended to recall the Latin mare (pl. maria) "sea"; his comes from the Welsh Mabinogion, where one of the twin sons of Arianhrod is Dylan Eil Don "great tide, son of the wave."
I took the first name of Isabeau Reisse in "Singing Innocence and Experience" from a children's picture book by Jane Yolen, Dove Isabeau (1989), because I wanted something medieval-Renaissance to match the Unicorn Tapestries. It's abbreviated to Beau deliberately so that the name is a little ambiguous in gender, and I may have wanted some implication of Beauty and the Beast.
Lance Carsey in "Clay Lies Still" is named as a reflection of Lawrence Szenes-Strauss, to whom the story is dedicated.
The name of the title character in "Nights with Belilah" is taken from Jane Yolen's "Sister Death," a retelling of Lilith, since she is one of the Lilim. Theo Volpe is named after an obscure and martyred Saint Theodolus, which probably comes from Theodoulos "slave of God," but which I prefer to read from the Greek δόλος "trick, trap."
Ligeia in "Featherweight" is named after the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, although it is implied that perhaps it should be the other way around.
"Another Coming" started life as the names of its three characters, Leo, Acacia, and Quince, and I have no explanation for any of them.
Catholic Dave and Dave Felder in "A Ceiling of Amber, A Pavement of Pearl" are a nod to the various different friends named Dave whom I knew at Brandeis, like Roleplaying Dave or Asian Dave. The last name of Elias Haden is meant to recall the underworld.
Menachem in Hebrew means "comforter," hence the name of the eponymous dybbuk in love.
Both Vetiver and Demetre in "Chez Vous Soon" do not use their given names—hers is Julia; his is Lewis—but she is named for the smoky, earthy scent of vetiver oil and his allusion should be obvious.
Aster Linneman from "In the Praying Windows" is named after a poem of Plato's.
Septimus Bruckner in "A Voice in Caves" is named after the protagonist of Joan Aiken's The Moon's Revenge (1987) and the nineteenth-century classical composer Anton Bruckner.
For "Odd Sympathy," I stole the name Yedart shamelessly from Alan Garner's Strandloper (1996).
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Possibly because there is a more common surname "Saint-Etienne"; which is a city in France (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-%C3%89tienne) and an indie band (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Etienne_%28band%29) (not to mention, of course, a Saint (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Stephen)). The two probably sound similar if mangled by American English, causing more people to associate with the French rather than the Irish, obscuring the origin of the name. In any case, it was the logical jump that I immediately made when I saw the name.
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I know the name Saint-Etienne; Saint-Etain is a coinage. What I cannot remember is why I coined it in the first place.
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You're welcome. Not at all!