posted
I have no doubt that I am not the first person to notice this. But I couldn't seem to find any other topics regarding this issue, so here it is.
I'd say that OSC's two best known series are the Ender series and the Alvin series. It occured to my word-image sense (the knack which sees the shape of a word - the vowel structure, the sound, the roots and etymology, etc) that something was similar about these words. A few seconds later I saw that they both began with vowels, and were five letters long. As I often do with patterns, I sought to continue this pattern and see what other names might fit this pattern. Immediately, a name entered my mind: Orson.
And not only do they all begin with a vowel, but they are all constructed this way: vowel, softer consonant, syllable-starting consonant, vowel, softer constant. And the emphasis is on the first syllable.
All this to say, the three names are constructed identically. Is it known whether OSC did this intentionally, or is this a coincidence?
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posted
I'm pretty sure Card talks about his name choices and about an Author's general name choices. Not sure where though...
I'm a fan of most of the name choices, though not so much the ones where I have to read a pronunciation guide to figure out. I generally end up deciding their names are different in my head.
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: I'm pretty sure Card talks about his name choices and about an Author's general name choices. Not sure where though...
I'm a fan of most of the name choices, though not so much the ones where I have to read a pronunciation guide to figure out. I generally end up deciding their names are different in my head.
Here and here. I also remember him saying alien names shouldn't be based on the authour slamming his head into the keyboard, which has always stuck with me. However I'm not sure of the source on that.
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quote:Originally posted by dantesparadigm: Here and here. I also remember him saying alien names shouldn't be based on the authour slamming his head into the keyboard, which has always stuck with me. However I'm not sure of the source on that.
I've read those articles, and I realize it's not very strange at all for there to be an abundance of pronounceable two syllable names out there, in OSC's work or elsewhere.
What does seem a bit less likely is for an author to share an identical first-name construction with his two biggest protagonists by mere chance. Especially with OSC, whom I would say puts a fair bit of thought into his character names.
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quote: What does seem a bit less likely is for an author to share an identical first-name construction with his two biggest protagonists by mere chance. Especially with OSC, whom I would say puts a fair bit of thought into his character names.
Bear in mind that OSC goes by the name Scott, not Orson.
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quote:I had the same problem. First rule: No two characters in the same story can have their key name (i.e., the one most commonly referred to) start with the same letter or the same sound).
If he'd followed that rule in Ender's Game, that Peter/Petra headache in the Shadow series could have been avoided. Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
There's a pretty specific reasons Alvin is named Alvin, and I don't know if that book had been conceived of yet when he named Ender. It's true that N, R, and L are all coronal consonants, but V and D only share voicing.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: From the earlier link:
quote:I had the same problem. First rule: No two characters in the same story can have their key name (i.e., the one most commonly referred to) start with the same letter or the same sound).
If he'd followed that rule in Ender's Game, that Peter/Petra headache in the Shadow series could have been avoided.
To be fair, I don't think OSC ever intended for Petra and Peter to meet when he wrote the first book back then. That and their gender makes them hard to confuse.
OTOH, Bernard and Bonzo have the same problem.
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posted
I remember reading that OSC chose the name Ender because he wanted the title "Ender's Game" to be reminiscent of the chess term 'end game'.
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quote:To be fair, I don't think OSC ever intended for Petra and Peter to meet when he wrote the first book back then.
Of course he didn't.
But still, if he'd followed that rule as stated there (in the other link he said it in a different way that doesn't allow me to pick at this inconsequential nit ), and didn't let the names of any "two characters in the same story" be that similar, the Peter/Petra confusion would never have happened.
quote:That and their gender makes them hard to confuse.
Yet somehow I succeeded in doing so. Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: There's a pretty specific reasons Alvin is named Alvin, and I don't know if that book had been conceived of yet when he named Ender. It's true that N, R, and L are all coronal consonants, but V and D only share voicing.
Well put.
I am now curious about the origin of Alvin's name (And Calvin, for that matter).
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