Episode 20: How do you choose the names of your characters? -with Megan McDonald

Welcome to another episode of Kids Ask Authors! Today we are with Megan McDonald and she answer this kid question: How do you choose the names of your characters?

TRANSCRIPT:

Grace Lin: Hello, I'm Grace Lin, children's book author and illustrator of many books, including the middle grade novel, Where The Mountain Meets The Moon, and the picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star. Today I'm here with Megan McDonald, the author of the Judy Moody book series, as well as the Stink book series. Hi, Megan.

Megan McDonald: Hi, Grace. It's so nice to be with you.

Grace Lin: It's so nice to be with you too. We had a little bit of some technical issues, but we've got them all set, so I am so ready to ask you a question. Are you ready?

Megan McDonald: I'm ready.

Grace Lin: Okay. Today's question is from a person named Christina, and they ask...

Christina: How do you choose the name of your character?

Grace Lin: How do you choose the names of your characters?

Megan McDonald: Ooh, I love that question because names are one of the most fun parts for me to try to imagine and think up.

Megan McDonald: So I guess it would be good to start with talking about how did I come up with the name Judy Moody, since she's the character most readers will know. And Judy Moody of course sounds kind of funny because it rhymes, but I didn't start out that way. I started out just creating an eight year old who had a lot of different moods, good moods, bad moods, happy mood, sad moods. And I thought, what would be a good name for this character? And I think it's really fun if a name can often kind of reflect something about the person. So I first came up with her last name because I thought Moody would make a good last name for a character who has a lot of moods, right?

Megan McDonald: So then I was brainstorming and I have a whole list of all these names I was thinking of for her first name, and on the list was the name Judy. And when I hit on Judy, I was like, "Wait, Judy Moody? It rhymes. That sounds really fun."

Megan McDonald: So I ended up picking Judy Moody in the end for that rhyme, but I thought I was just making this up in my imagination, right? But since then, after several Judy Moody books came out, I get lots of letters from real people named Judy Moody.

Grace Lin: Oh wow. That's so funny and fun.

Megan McDonald: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some of them, many of them seemed to marry into the name, so they had the name Judy and married somebody named Moody, but it's really fun when I get a letter from a real live Judy Moody.

Grace Lin: What were some of the rejected names?

Megan McDonald: Oh gosh, I don't even remember. I think I just had some names that were popular at the time that I was writing, like Sarah or Kate or Hannah. You know, I was just trying of contemporary names. But I grew up with a best friend that I've known since I was two years old. She lived across the street and her name was Judy, so that's how that name popped onto the list.

Grace Lin: Oh, that's so great. Well, I really liked what you said about how you like to choose a name that has something to do with the characters. Because when I got this question, I was thinking, oh, well, I get a lot of questions about my character in my book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, about the Minli character, and also, all the Asian characters' names. And I choose my names based on their characters too. All the Chinese names I choose, I make sure that the meanings of them in Chinese have something to do with their character.

Grace Lin: So Minli really does mean quick and clever in Chinese. So that's why I gave her that name because I wanted her to be like a quick and clever character and have that kind of personality. And then like all of the names have kind of like secret meanings to them. Like there's another character in one of my books named Mr. Shan, and Shan in Chinese means mountain. And if you read the book, you'll know he has a very strong connection with the mountain. So it really is these meanings of the name that reflect the character that I think is so interesting.

Megan McDonald: That's really interesting. I love the symbolism of that. And it's kind of fun. Like you could go and look up your own name and think about, you know, does that name have anything? I think Megan means honeybee, if I'm not mistaken. But it would be kind of fun for kids to look up their name and see if they can figure out is it like their personality?

Grace Lin: Yeah.

Megan McDonald: Also, it's kind of fun to learn about the origin of your name. How did you get that name? Like a lot of kids ask me how did Judy's little brother Stink get his name. Because Stink, it does not sound like any parents would name their kid Stink, right? So Stink of course is his nickname, and if you read the first book, it's revealed what his real name is, but Stink was a nickname. I was trying to come up with sort of a pesky little brother, and I remembered when I was growing up, my mom, if somebody was sort of mischievous, she would call them, "Oh, they're a real stinker." So I remembered the word stinker and I just shortened it to Stink.

Grace Lin: That's awesome.

Megan McDonald: Yeah.

Grace Lin: I wanted to just talk about how you were saying people could look up their names, and that really hit a chord with me because my name is Grace, which Grace has many different meanings. And so I think right from when I was younger, I was always interested in what people's names meant.

Megan McDonald: Yes.

Grace Lin: And so that is why I was so particular about the characters' names in my books. In fact, like I spent so much time reading Chinese naming books. Like I think that might be one of my most used reference books is like Chinese names.

Megan McDonald: Oh. Yeah.

Grace Lin: Just because they can inspire such interesting characters just by what the names mean.

Megan McDonald: Yeah, it's really fun. It's sort of like if you go out in the world and you're observing things that come into your writing, well, it's the same thing when you come across names. Like if I am watching a movie and then I watch the credits and all these names scroll by, I always think, "Ooh, that's a good name," even though it's a real person's name.

Megan McDonald: So sometimes I actually use a real name and ask the person if I can have permission. Like I once wrote a book about a girl who loves insects and I named her Amanda Frankenstein, but that was a real reader who came through an autographing line once. And I was signing the book to her and I just loved that name. It sounds made up, but it was real. And I asked her if I could put her name in a book.

Grace Lin: Oh, that's so cool. Actually, in some of my other books like The Year of the Dog, that's about my family and I used my real family's names in there too.

Megan McDonald: Ooh. Well, I like the names Ling and Ting that you have in those books. Did you just make those up?

Grace Lin: I did and I didn't. I have a niece named Ting Ting, and Ling is my friend's last name, so it was like a very... So they're real Chinese names that I kind of put together, but I do not know a Ling and a Ting together.

Megan McDonald: Yeah, I like that because I have some Chinese nieces in my family and their grandmother's name was Ling, so I know it as a last name, but I really like the Ling & Ting books. So yeah.

Grace Lin: Aw, thank you. Well, this is a really cool conversation about character names. Thank you so much, Megan, for answering it and thank you Christina for asking it.

Megan McDonald: Yeah, that was a great question. Thanks so much.

Grace Lin: Thanks. Bye.

Megan McDonald: Bye.

Today’s BOOK REVIEW comes from Olive! Olive is going to tell us all about The Hank Zipper series by Henry Winkler and illustrated by Lin Oliver.

Hi, my name is Olive, and I really like the Hank Zipper series. It's by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver. There's 17 books, and it is super funny and humorous. I like how there's a lot of plot twists. Also, I like how there's a lot of the chapters are just lists, so that's really cool. It's about a boy named Hank who was learning challenges. He sometimes gets into mischief, but I like listening to how he solves it. He has a super trool teacher named Miss Adolf. She's always dressed in gray. She has a gray face, so that's super funny. Thank you for letting me be on your show.

Thank you Olive!

More about today’s authors:

Megan McDonald is the author of more than sixty books for children and young readers, including the critically acclaimed Judy Moody series. These hilarious books have won numerous awards, ranging from a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and an International Reading Association Children’s Choice to the first-ever Beverly Cleary Children’s Choice Award. She is also the author of The Sisters Club trilogy and the Stink series. Her picture books include Ant and Honeybee: A Pair of Friends, It’s Picture Day Today, and Hen Hears Gossip. The Hinky-Pink and Judy Moody Get Famous! were selected as American Library Association Notable Books. Her other honors include the Judy Blume Contemporary Fiction Award for the novel The Bridge to Nowhere. Megan lives and writes in northern California.  Find out more about Megan on her website.

Grace Lin, a NY Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and her picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, was awarded the Caldecott Honor. Grace is an occasional commentator for New England Public Radio , a video essayist for PBS NewsHour (here & here), and the speaker of the popular TEDx talk, The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf. She is the co-host of the podcast Book Friends Forever, a kidlit podcast about friendship and publishing (geared for adults). Find her facebook,  instagram , twitter ( @pacylin) or sign up for her author newsletter HERE.

Special thanks to the High Five Books & Art Always Bookstore, Ms. Carleton’s 2nd grade class at Jackson Street School for their help with our kid questions and reviews.