While I’m on the subject of names…

My strengths as a writer do not include a particular talent for naming characters, let’s just establish that from the start. While I despair ever having the knack for it that—oh, anybody else—does, I do try to at least name my characters with significance.

For example, one of my characters in Songs for Piano and Voice is a nosy, tea-and-sympathy-doling, everybody’s mother figure, a la Molly Weasley from the Harry Potter series (who would also be likely to say, “NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU $%&@*!”) so I made her a red-head and named her Ginger.  Perhaps not the best example of creativity or originality, though I like to think of her as an homage.

I’m rather proud of how I named my leading lady, Laura Lovelace—though someone-who-shall-not-be-named tells me this name makes him think of Luna Lovegood and thus “Loony Laura Lovegood.” Any of you other Potterfans who’ve also read Songs think of that? (Also, I’m suddenly alarmingly aware of the number of Potter references I make…)

Back to the point…When I was conceptualizing this character, an Italian aria I sang during my brief stint as a voice major kept coming to mind. It contains the phrase “l’aura che tu respiri, alfin respiro,” which roughly translates to “the air you breathe, at last I breathe.” The name Laura was right there in the text, and it was pretty, feminine, and fit the mental image I had for the character.

There’s a story behind Laura’s last name, too.  Lovelace is a play on words: Laura is the romantic interest for a loveless man. Yeah, kinda lame, I know—but as I said, I don’t claim to be particularly good at this aspect of storytelling.

Which brings us to my male lead, John Marks, and an embarrassing confession: John is my placeholder name whenever I can’t think of a male name and want to move on with a project. In this case, I moved on with a whole novel, and by then had spent so much time with the character that I could never think of him as anything but John. He was supposed to be an ordinary thirtysomething pianist, so why not give him the most common male name in the English language?

John’s last name, Marks, was the product of a little free-writing to get the feel for how he and Laura interact. I wanted them to hit it off right from the start, when they meet at church, with a bit of banter/flirtation. Now I can’t remember the exactly thought process, but I wound up with a page of dialogue in which Laura teases John about sharing his name with John Mark, a nudist in the Bible. I kept the name, as well as the scene, because emotional nakedness had become a theme in the book.

So you see, while my characters may not be the best named in fiction, they are named with significance.

It turns out that John Marks is a more significant name than I imagined.

One night, while playing a game of Beyond Balderdash with friends, I learned that Johnny Marks was the composer behind all the songs in the old 1960s stop-motion Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, among other popular Christmas tunes.

I did not know this when I named my John, and though part of me is tempted to work this into the story somewhere; it would so be John to bemoan the fact that of all the composers, he would share a name of the one responsible for all his (and the author’s) least favorite Christmas songs. But doing that might undermine the wonderful, amusing coincidence of it all, which is one of the things I love most about being a writer.

In this profession, magic happens.  (And that’s not a Harry Potter reference.)

A funny thing happened the other night as Mr. Burt and I enjoyed a few minutes of alone time after the Burt Squirt went to bed.

We sat together on the sofa, and Mr. Burt gave me a back massage because I was hurting from hefting the 17.2 pound Burt Squirt (and, occasionally, his carseat carrier) all day.  As if that wasn’t relaxing enough, our cat, Dorian Gray, who hasn’t been extremely affectionate toward us since we surprised her by returning from four days’ absence with a loud, stinky new pet who gets all our attention, curled up next to me and began to purr.

Always keen to encourage sociable behavior in our kitty (who is, perhaps, too aptly named), Mr. Burt praised her:  “Oh, you’re coming to sit with Lisa! That’s so nice, Dorrie!”

My fingers, which had been stroking Dorrie’s silky black coat, stopped.

“You called me Lisa,” I said at the exact moment as Mr. Burt said, “I called you Lisa.”

For the past five months, when Mr. Burt has spoken about me, it’s mostly been to the Burt Squirt, so he refers to me as Mommy. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I heard him talk about me as Lisa. It was nice to hear (after I realized he was talking about me).  There’s probably something deep and psychological in there about motherhood and identity, but I haven’t had enough sleep for that and mostly I just think it’s funny that Mr. Burt and I realized at the same moment how little opportunity we have to refer to each other by our names instead of by our new roles.

For the record, Mr. Burt has never addressed me as Mommy, nor have I ever addressed him as Daddy.

But perhaps, in light of this incident, we’d better start addressing each other as Lisa and Jeff instead of Tater and Jeffer, or Baby and Honey, lest we forget our names altogether.

On the other hand, this way we’re not in any danger of wearing out our names.

One of the things I’ve discovered about being pregnant is that everyone likes to make small talk with you.  (Once it’s obvious that you are, indeed, sporting a baby belly and not a spare tire.)  I think it’s one of those things in life that’s common to just about everyone:  either they, personally, have had a baby, or are in the process of having one, or they know someone who has had/is having a baby.  Also, I think people just like babies and pregnant women!

Sunday night, Mr. Burt and I went to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes (which is, by the way, a fantastic salad bar/buffet that caters to a younger, more health-conscious crowd than Golden Corral or Sirloin Stockade) because I was too tired to cook after a long previous day of shopping and decorating, a largely sleepless night, and a baby shower that afternoon.  As we were carrying our trays of salad to a table, one of the guys busing tables interrupted an animated conversation he was having with a table of ladies to shout to me, “Hey!  How many months are you?  Eight?”

“Just about,” I replied.

He threw his hands up in the air like he’d just scored a touchdown.  “I knew it!”

“You’re having a boy,” chimed in one of the women, pointing at my belly.  “I can tell from how you’re carrying.”

“Oh yeah,” agreed the busboy.  “You’re totally having a boy.”

“It is a little boy,” I said.

Another victory dance.  I wondered how excited this guy would get if his own wife told him he was having a boy.  “Is he going to be a junior?” he asked Mr. Burt.

“Nah,” Mr. Burt answered.  “He’s my little dude, but we’re not naming him after me.”

The busboy’s jaw dropped.  “You have to name him after you!  Carry on the family name — all the kings did.  You know, like Henry VIII.”

Apparently the busboy missed the part where Henry VIII kept divorcing and beheading his wives because they weren’t having boys… (Though, to be fair, Henry VIII’s illegitimate son was a junior.)

“You should name him Kingston!” suggested the woman subscribing to the old wives’ tale that carrying low means a boy.

“As in, the capital of Jamaica?” I whispered to Mr. Burt as we left the busboy and the customer to continue their discussion about what to name baby boys.  Who knows?  Maybe a romance blossomed that night, and nine months from now the busboy will be the proud papa of Busboy, Jr.

Thankfully, the nurse who took my blood pressure yesterday at my OB appointment thinks Liam Alexander is a great name.  We concur.