Numb de Gruyere

I have a weakness for cheesy names.

The best ones come from real life. Growing up I met a guy named Dick Fitzhugh. Recently I heard about Nita Love. Of course, I’ve lived more than sixty years as Dick Fancy. With a name like that, it’s too bad I’m not gay.

I invented a gay character named Guy Pearce for the book I just finished, Grand Designs (haven’t sold it yet). Turns out, there’s an Australian actor by that name, too. No word if he’s gay, too.

One of my principal characters is Lucy Firenze. Firenze is the Italian name for the city of Florence. When she first meets Frank Healy, she explains that the name was de Firenze when her grandfather arrived at Ellis Island. The Immigration people changed it to Firenze because it didn’t make any difference (Ba-da-boom!).

A peripheral character that shows up periodically is the Macomb County Medical Examiner, Todd Metzger. In German, todt means dead and a Metzger is a butcher: Todd Metzger is a butcher of the dead. If I get a smile from even one reader (did you smile?), I’ve succeeded.

In the book I’m working on now, Frank visits a bar where transvestites perform. Remember that scene in Miss Congeniality 2? One of them is Jean Hardlow. Another is Linda Ronstakd. Think about it, but not too long.

My bad guys need good names, too. In Safety Margin, the executive who’s recruiting all the Vietnam vets as crash test dummies is named Gunner Winchester. He’s an ex-Green Beret colonel whose staff is very regimented. Winchester manufactured firearms for over a hundred years. Enough said.

Detroit is fertile ground for picking up names. Many of the major streets are named after important and sometimes unimportant people from the city’s early history. It didn’t take too much effort to put together a law firm that sounded like directions to the Detroit Institute of Arts. Don Chene, of Woodward Farnsworth Brush and Chene, was a natural.

Stueben Beaubien is another character whose name appears on city roadmaps. The Stueben part comes from a Revolutionary War hero. As you might expect, his family was instrumental founding Univers Industries and he has a leg up on Frank in office politics because of his connections. Isn’t that typical? Well, yes it is, but I won’t get into that.

This quality of the city has been especially valuable, because I want my story to be steeped in history. If the families have been around for generations, their memories and grudges can be equally steeped in history. In my world, the car business is a blood sport.

When blood is drawn, gangsters can’t be too far off stage. Between the Purple Gang and more recent mobsters, I could have had my pick, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, especially if they’re still packing. Instead, I chose to conjure sufficiently thuggish, Italian sounding names. Bruno Giancarlo was among the usual suspects, but as far as I know, no such person was ever a Detroit crime figure. His son, Sonny, lives on, but he’s reformed. He provides security for Lucy, but wouldn’t hurt anyone unless provoked.

Dr. Suzanne Düsseldorf is a more benign, ongoing character. In the second book, she runs a drug rehab clinic on Cass in Detroit. She darts into the story periodically to offer medical advice, but avoids trouble. The name obviously derives from the German city. I’ve known several -dorfs over the years, but never a Düsseldorf. She is a perpetually harried character with too little body fat and too-wild curly hair.

Buck Rogers is my personal favorite. The origins of the name are obvious. People do get stuck with nicknames like that through no fault of their own. What makes Buck stand out is his violation of stereotypes. While Buck is a large, muscular black man, he is also a highly educated union organizer and an avowed Marxist. He and Frank get along because Frank’s blue collar roots are showing. They enjoy trading Marxist quotes while fighting against the company’s callous anti-union war.

Cute names may not add anything to the story, but they make for more enjoyable reading. In my experience, real people have equally funny names that make sly reference to their identities. Life is full of irony. Why can’t fiction be, too?