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malsperanzaIn the sad story this week of (another) school shooting, the one in Red Lake Reservation in Minnesota, something unrelated to that event caught my eye. Newspaper reports sometimes convey, sidelong, information and ideas other than the topic they are covering.
Indian surnames, sometimes Englished, sometimes not, are often remarkable. Like the invented surnames Jews took for themselves in the 17th and 18th centuries (Rosegarden, Diamond, Silverstone, Greentree), they have a kind of conscious poetry.
Red Lake, north near Canada, is a Chippewa Ojibwe reservation. Apparently many of the surnames that appeared in the news stories are common there. They include:
Dawn Fineday
Roman Stately (director of the Red Lake Fire Department)
Thurlene Stillday (a girl killed in the massacre)
Going to an Ojibwe genealogical site, in addition to the more typical Indian English surnames (Blood, Blackeagle, Buckdeer, Fox, Frost, Hazard, Kickingbear, Littlestar, Redcloud) and a good many French names, I also find
Badboy
Downwind
Everywind
Earth
Prayingday
Skipintheday
Holeintheday
Strutt
Swaddle
Nope
Dire
Skinaway
Tainter
Wack
Severence
And then there are the sort of names that so attracted Tolkien and later Rowling,
Slinker
Slaughter
Soldier
Ojibwe names are
Ahkukkungaywenen Ahkahkunjaywenen Ahkahkahshaywene
Jebezhigoke
Kagegejig
Muck Muckkundwawenene
Kiniwigwanebeak
Pahoombegwonaybe
Songwayway
Marie Esquayannuckquod Ishkweianakwadok
Aheendahjewaybeq Ieendahjewaybeak
I would like to know more about those surnames that end in -day.
In any case, in fiction there is an art to choosing names for characters that resonate but do not burden them like the nametags at a convention:
Hi! My Name Is Disillusioned Hero!
Hi! My Name Is Spunky Heroine!
Hi! My Name Is Evil Badguy!
I mostly like the names given to characters by Faulkner, Dickens, Tolkien and Rowling--despite their nametag qualities (Mr. Micawber, Addie Burden, Joe Christmas), they always have a ring of authenticity and verism and a touch of music: Snape, Hagrid, Uriah Heep, Flem Snopes, Coldfield, COl. Sartoris, Samwise Gamgee. I have never been bothered by the artifice of giving a fictional character a name loaded with meaning, as long as it is done artfully.
The one name I cannot like is Harry Potter. The choice of a generic, bland, whitebread name for the hero continues to puzzle me.
Indian surnames, sometimes Englished, sometimes not, are often remarkable. Like the invented surnames Jews took for themselves in the 17th and 18th centuries (Rosegarden, Diamond, Silverstone, Greentree), they have a kind of conscious poetry.
Red Lake, north near Canada, is a Chippewa Ojibwe reservation. Apparently many of the surnames that appeared in the news stories are common there. They include:
Dawn Fineday
Roman Stately (director of the Red Lake Fire Department)
Thurlene Stillday (a girl killed in the massacre)
Going to an Ojibwe genealogical site, in addition to the more typical Indian English surnames (Blood, Blackeagle, Buckdeer, Fox, Frost, Hazard, Kickingbear, Littlestar, Redcloud) and a good many French names, I also find
Badboy
Downwind
Everywind
Earth
Prayingday
Skipintheday
Holeintheday
Strutt
Swaddle
Nope
Dire
Skinaway
Tainter
Wack
Severence
And then there are the sort of names that so attracted Tolkien and later Rowling,
Slinker
Slaughter
Soldier
Ojibwe names are
Ahkukkungaywenen Ahkahkunjaywenen Ahkahkahshaywene
Jebezhigoke
Kagegejig
Muck Muckkundwawenene
Kiniwigwanebeak
Pahoombegwonaybe
Songwayway
Marie Esquayannuckquod Ishkweianakwadok
Aheendahjewaybeq Ieendahjewaybeak
I would like to know more about those surnames that end in -day.
In any case, in fiction there is an art to choosing names for characters that resonate but do not burden them like the nametags at a convention:
Hi! My Name Is Disillusioned Hero!
Hi! My Name Is Spunky Heroine!
Hi! My Name Is Evil Badguy!
I mostly like the names given to characters by Faulkner, Dickens, Tolkien and Rowling--despite their nametag qualities (Mr. Micawber, Addie Burden, Joe Christmas), they always have a ring of authenticity and verism and a touch of music: Snape, Hagrid, Uriah Heep, Flem Snopes, Coldfield, COl. Sartoris, Samwise Gamgee. I have never been bothered by the artifice of giving a fictional character a name loaded with meaning, as long as it is done artfully.
The one name I cannot like is Harry Potter. The choice of a generic, bland, whitebread name for the hero continues to puzzle me.
