Character Naming: Finding Mioko
‘What’s in a name?’
This is both a chapter title and a theme in my novel, Twilight Wolf. But let’s look at naming and creating my protagonist—Mioko. Why make her a Japanese girl? Was there a reason behind it?
Yes. Yes, there was.
If you haven’t seen this before, here’s the writing prompt this story was drawn from:
Little Red Riding Hood, The Big Bad Wolf, and the lumberjack all have to put their differences aside when they hear the moaning of the undead outside the cabin they’re in.
When I started writing the original short story in reply to the reddit writing prompt, my main character’s name was Sarah. When I’m drafting, I don’t spend any time on details like names. I just use the first thing that comes to mind and move on. Obviously, this changed somewhere along the line.
As a pantser, I write to discover the story. I don’t really know what it’s about, so it often feels like I’m more of a reporter than a writer. Instead of the characters doing things and me writing it down, I write it down as the characters are doing things. And I really don’t know what they’ll do until they’re doing it. I suspect it happens that way for all pantsers, but plotters will experience this too if they give their characters leave to act as the character wishes.
If you read Twilight Wolf, you may find an aesthetic similar to Devil May Cry’s Dante and when I wrote for this story, I had Dante in mind. More than anything else, I wanted her to have a katana, a pair of pistols, and a long scarf that streamed behind her as she fought. As the story progressed, I wanted the katana to have a backstory, maybe even a legend. On top of that, I wanted it to be a reflection of my protagonist in some way.
With this in mind, the katana is a Japanese sword, which meant that my lead would have a Japanese heritage. So, I didn’t decide my character’s heritage at all; my sword did. Thus, Sarah became Mioko.
Important Consideration
I have a lot of interest in Japanese culture, history, and creative works, so settling on my character’s specific name choice was far more involved than I expected. I made fun of this process a bit within my narrative, but I learned something important when trying to find Mioko’s name.
While searching through the meanings behind names, I wanted my lead’s to mean something like ‘Chosen One’ or ‘Dragon Something or Other.’ You know, something flashy. The problem was in who was giving her a name. As the author, I have the luxury of knowing things beyond the understanding of the characters.’ I may know that my lead is going to go through the story doing flashy things. But what about her birth parents? Given the circumstances surrounding her birth, would they have named her the same?
The simple answer is no. And this is what’s important for you to consider. Within the narrative, who named your character and why?
Mioko’s parents didn’t see her doing any exciting things, because she was born with a disability that didn’t promise a life of adventure; it promised a shorter life span. So, this is the knowledge they possessed when naming her, and they did so in line with the Japanese view of cherry blossoms. The blooms on these trees are often paralleled to the life of the samurai—beautiful and short lived. And that’s what ‘Mio’ means—beautiful cherry blossom—with ‘ko’ meaning ‘child.’
So, Mioko means ‘beautiful cherry blossom child.’
This isn’t information that ever comes up in my novel’s narrative, and you should realize that there are likely going to be a great many of your own world building details that have no place within the story. And that’s perfectly fine! It’s necessary, even.
I hope my experience with this proves useful for you in your own writing. And if you’re a reader of my novel, I hope you find this revelation rewarding in some way.
Happy reading/writing!
