Top Ten Tuesday - Character Names

This week's Top Ten Tuesday mission from The Broke and the Bookish Blog is to list character names; either our ten favorite or the most unusual.  At first I was pretty stumped by this - I don't usually take much special notice of character names and I have a horrible memory.  But then names started flying at me fast and furious  - These were the names that have actually stuck in my mind despite my brain's best efforts to forget them.  Not sure if this makes them my favorite but I suppose it makes them memorable and somewhat significant to me.

1) Scarlett O'Hara/Rhett Butler from Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Can you imagine any better names for a saucy southern Belle and her ne'er do well pirate lover?  I can't.

2)Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch from the Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch Trilogy by Robert B. Parker

Because have there ever been a better pair of wild west names as this?  (Okay maybe Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but those are like, stage names.)  You can probably even take a guess at what kind of characters they based on their names.

3) Logen Ninefingers aka The Bloody Nine from The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie 

Names have much significance to the Northmen of Joe Abercrombie's First Law world.  To be a "named man" is to be a man who has proved his worth in battle and none is more feared then The Bloody Nine.  When the reader first meets him though, he's just Logen Ninefingers and we're not entirely sure what all the fuss is about.  But we do learn....

4) Locke Lamora from Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastard series 

Because it's just a cool name that flows off the tongue just like all the lies that Locke tells. And it's in the title of the first book in this series so that helps.

5) Harry Dresden from the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

This name just fits the character and the P.I. wizard role.  Very noir without being overly copycat.

6) Huckleberry Finn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

This is such a a great name for a mischievous young boy. 

 7) Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis 

In the book it says the even the mere mention of his name makes people feel weird and provokes great emotion.  Probably because they are all thinking Cool Name for a Lion!

 8) Dexter Morgan from the Dexter Series by Jeff Lindsey 

Dexter is just a really great fictional name for a serial killer.  No offense to any Dexters out there...

9) Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride by William Goldman

I'm not sure this one needs explanation!

10) Flavia DeLuce from the Flavia DeLuce series by Alan Bradley

Sufficiently aristocratic and old-fashioned for the feisty and irrepressible 11 year old heroine of these mysteries.

Honorable Mentions

Rebecca from Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier: We never even meet the character with the name but it overshadows all the action in the book.

Doc Holliday from numerous, but most recently encountered in Doc by Mary Doria Russell:  Doc Holliday sounds like a cheerful, Santa Claus like figure when really he was a gambling, consumptive gun slinger dentist- pretty much nothin' god in there!  But he still manages to be charming.   In literature it least.


Smilla Jaspersen from Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg:  It's such a fantastically Scandinavian name and makes for a really great title.  Good book too.

Good names and all from good books as well! I'm sure there are many I have missed.  What are your favorite character names?