Do Names Matter?

When I start a story, I begin with the conflict. I ask a question and then I try and find characters and settings that help answer it. It’s a very research paper way to write fiction, I just realized, but it works for me. Some people start with a character or even a name. I, on the other hand, start with the story and then have a dedicated name day.

It’s a day when I break out my big book of baby names and flip through looking for monikers that will have deep meaning or sound melodic to the ear. But that always comes later. I want to know more about the characters before I saddle them with names. It’s the same with place names.

Fairy tales don’t have this problem. How many Jacks have a story? Little Red Riding Hood must have been a placeholder that was never fixed. Does anyone know Sleeping Beauty’s name? And yet Cocklestrutshell and Frosty Ash don’t have quite the appeal of Rumpelstiltskin and Snow White.

I remember complaining to a friend that speculative fiction writers have this unspoken contest to outdo each other with names to the point that trying to pronounce them takes away from the experience. I, for example, try to use as many Latino names as possible (because I rarely found them in my books growing up and even now), but I also think about the English speaker and pronunciation. Ana works for most tongues, but Asunción de Maria, can be a mouthful.

So, when do names matter? Do they require deep meaning? Or is it like an architectural flourish that a builder adds, but the occupant of the space barely notices?