In my life, I find that I’m often tasked with coming up for a name for something. My day job is as a content designer at Meta, where the core responsibility is writing UI (user interface) content (or copy) for online social products that as many as 3 billion people may see. So there’s a bit of pressure to make sure I don’t mess up any standard button, header, subheader, body paragraph, navigational element, etc. with a typo or a totally incoherent phrase. There’s quite a lot more pressure when I have to name a feature or a surface or an entire product. And yet, the type of naming that I’ve lost the most sleep over (I don’t have pets or children) revolves around my novel. Two names in particular: the name of the main character, and the name of the book itself.
The name of the main character is Nathan Sarnoff. The name of the book is Fatherboy. In it, our dear Nathan is a 24-year-old son of immigrants who finds out he’s a father due to an accidental pregnancy. I knew from the start that his first name would be Nathan, because it’s the English version of Natan, the name of my paternal grandfather. As for the last name, it…took some time to land there. Witness the list I compiled as I was writing my first draft:
Nathan Alderman
Nate Hemsky
Dubinsky
Dubrovsky
Morozov
Polovsky/Polofsky
Podolsky (from where Ukraine/Moldova is now)
Smolensky (Smolensk, 360km from Moscow)
Zubatsky
Krupovsky
Brodsky
Bialik
Parnov
Chekov
Baskin/Raskin
Altman
Rabin
Schwartz (other one synonym)
Lasky
Trotsky
Shafran/Safran
Sarnoff(ov)
Schiffrin
As you can see, Sarnoff(ov) didn’t show up until just about the end. At this point it doesn’t feel like it could ever be anything else, but clearly I had to feel my way through a bunch of Soviet Jewish surnames to get there. As for the book’s title, that was an even more wide-ranging search. Let’s work our way backwards from the short list:
Fatherboy
A Healthy Arrangement
Nathan Tries Hard
You’re the Father
On Looks Alone
Looking at this now, I’m reminded that On Looks Alone was the working title for a pretty long time. I really liked that the phrase might capture the idea of someone acting solely based on preconception/prejudgment, because there are deeper layers to the premise laid out above, and Nathan stumbles around making pretty foolish decisions as each are revealed. But at the same time, it’s asking a lot of the title to do that work, and although it’s hard to put myself in the mindset of seeing On Looks Alone without knowing the story, I’m pretty sure the phrase wouldn’t actually say much about it at all. Same for A Healthy Arrangement—this phrase actually shows up in the book, which is nice, but it also doesn’t really say anything without context. Nathan Tries Hard is just kind of thin, You’re the Father is starting to get there, and Fatherboy…bingo. In a word (well, two jammed together), it references the main character, what he’s like, and the journey he goes on. When I happened upon it, I thought it was too cute, but the more I said it, the more correct it felt, a dynamic that persists to this day.
Interestingly, it doesn’t even show up on my longlist, so maybe it took a long time for me to come up with it, maybe I didn’t even think it was worthy of writing down at first, or maybe both. Perhaps even more interestingly, a scan through the list could tell you a lot about the themes I wanted to explore:
Harmless
Innocuous
But I'm Not Like the Other Ones
Overthink
You’re Fine
Guessing and Stressing
Sad White Dude
The Last Laugh
Great on Paper (Life on Paper / in Practice)
Hapless
B-Roll
Celestial Bodies
Something’s Happening
White Male Anxiety
Paper Cut (1,000 of them)
Coward [X]
Monologue
Good Boy
On Looks Alone
Play on the word bittersweet
Better Left Unsaid
Such as it is
Some Personal News
Big if True
And How
The list goes on
Planned Obsolescence
In a bit, for a bit
Significant Self / Self Significant
Significant Mother
Insignificant Others
Neurotic Dream
Self Inflicted
Seams
Bigger Than You
Tap Target
The Way I Feel / Real Feel
Blind Spots (better way to play on this)
Not That I’m Aware Of / Unaware(s)
Fool’s Paradise
The Big Think
Face Value
Why Yes
Coy Pond
Before After
Look Alive
Decline to Comment
Understated
This is mine
Still here
Ongoing
The Walk Sign is On
Take It Easy
Happenings
No Do-overs
Remains to Be Seen
Now is Not the Time
Waking
Relations
Contents
Good Plan
Fine Print
(The) Missing Point / Missing the Point
Confusion Triangle
Borrowed Looks
(Lengthy) Considerations
Lily Pad
What About Her?
About Lily
Victimized
Victim Narrative
Sudden Movements
Most of these are hilariously bad (Something’s Happening, The Big Think). Some of them are fun but totally irrelevant phrases (The Walk Sign is On, Remains to Be Seen). Some are just…words (Contents, Relations). It’s a good thing I didn’t choose any of them to be the actual title. But it’s validating to have the process documented as a reminder that I did the actual work to land in the place I was always meant to land.
Anyway. Naming is hard. Enjoy the long weekend!
So true, it’s not an easy process. To choose a name for our first cat, we wrote suggestions on scraps of paper and put them in a hat.