The Names by Florence Knapp – the verdict on spring’s hottest debut

In this strikingly assured sliding doors tale, three alternate narratives unfold, showing how the choice of a name influences a lifeWhat’s in a name? More than Shakespeare might have led us to believe, according to research. Ever since 1985, when a study found that people tend to prefer the letters of their own initials over the other letters of the alphabet, research has confirmed the name-letter effect, proving that not only do consumers favour brands matching their initials, they are actually more likely to donate to relief efforts for a natural disaster such as a hurricane if they share an initial with that disaster. How far the name-letter effect influences our bigger life decisions – where we live, our choices of career or life partner – remains contentious, but there are clear indicators that, far from serving simply as identifiers, the names we are given at birth have the power to influence our psychological, social and economic outcomes.Florence Knapp’s strikingly assured debut novel, The Names, takes this idea and gives it a high-concept twist. It is October 1987 and Cora, trapped in a wretched and abusive marriage, has just had a second baby, a son. As she and her nine-year-old daughter Maia push the pram together through the debris of the Great Storm to register the birth, they talk about names. Cora’s husband Gordon has always insisted that the baby will take his name, a tradition passed down through his family, but Cora shrinks from the prospect. It is not just that she dislikes the name Gordon, “the way it starts with a splintering wound that makes her think of cracked boiled sweets, and then ends with a downward thud like someone slamming down a sports bag”. She fears that the name will force an unwelcome shape on her baby son, corrupting his innocence, locking him into a chain of violent, domineering men. Cora prefers Julian which, in her book of baby names, means sky father; she nurses the naive hope that, since the name honours Gordon’s paternity, he will find it an acceptable compromise. Meanwhile, Maia suggests Bear because it sounds “all soft and cuddly and kind … but also, brave and strong”. Continue reading...

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