Literary Names: Great American Novel namesakes 101
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. In fact, many of the most fashionable American baby names today were inspired by beloved books.
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 20th 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 considered.
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:
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
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