Actually, the very few 1 and 2 star reviews come across quite strongly as personal ax-grinding. Especially considereing that the 4 and 5 star reviews outnumber the 1 and 2 star reviews 8 to 1.
Personal? The way I am reading them they seem to point out what areas they can speak to, culturally, and point out what seem to be either obvious flaws or outright editing problems, and more than a few mention how little in-depth information is actually given.
It doesn't appear that there is anything personal about the reviews. Let me take a closer look -
For most writers, this book is simply a waste of time and money. The review that mentioned there are only ten surnames per etymological group made an important point, but unfortunately there are many other problems with this book. First, and I cannot stress this enough, unless you are doing historical or foreign writing, this book will be of very little use to you. There are very few contemporary American names in the book. Secondly, even if you are interested in doing historical work, for instance, the explanations of names are often pathetically inadequate. For instance, about 1/4 of all the Greek names have only this explanation "myth name." Thanks for the back-breaking research there. I know someone named Etzel, and by her name (Norse section) it simply says, "myth name (Atilla the Hun)". What does that mean? Is it a Norse myth about Atilla the Hun? It is some strange Norse-Mongolian hybrid myth? And I assure you I am not picking on embarrassing exceptions. This book may be of some use to writers working with historical or foreign subjects, but for the vast majority of writers, it is a waste of time and money. Do yourself a favor and buy a good baby book.
This review doesn't seem personal but points out how little "American" names are in the book (I suppose to caution writers who might be writing "American" stories and need names for them). This review mentions a flaw that seems to be mentioned a number of times in other reviews regarding the lack of depth to the explanation of names. I don't see any axe-grinding here.
You'll find lots of names in this book, but the descriptions given for what the names MEAN are woefully scant.
Nearly every name is given only a positive 1-3 word description ("Strong", "Beautiful", "Swift", "Lively", "Bright) so if you're looking to give an appropriate name to a troubled character, this book won't help. The worst you'll find is a few names listing "Sorrowful".)
TONS of names are simply followed by the singular description: "Myth name" or "legend". Well, OK, but's what's the jist of the myth? Would it have been so hard to include: "Myth - Betrayed by friend", or "Myth - Suicide over broken heart"?
Worse are all the names with "meanings for idiots", like "Hazel - Nut" or "Poppy - Flower". Come on!
The publisher could just as well publish the Index of names and you'd get just as much use out of it, because YOU'LL need to do all the research on every name you're considering. In fact, there are BABY NAME books with more detailed descriptions about the meanings of names!
A definite waste of money. Get yourself a decent baby name book (not the supermarket checkout type, but a book) and you'll have a much better chance at giving your characters appropriate names.
Is this what you meant by axe-grinding? That is, when someone mentions (as others do) that the explanations are very light? Is it that this reviewer seems very annoyed by that "fact?" If it is true, it would seem justified annoyance and hardly axe-grinding. I suppose it might be that the reviewer was turned down when trying to submit some written work to the publisher but that's had to fathom from the review.
I rarely review books but I felt I should write something about this book so that people know what to expect.
Of course I'm in no position whatsoever to judge the accuracy of the names of every country in the book(although another reviewer already pointed out the mistakes in the Swedish part of the book), but as far as Greece is concerned, the first names are mostly ancient greek or simply not greek at all, while 90%+ of them are not even in use. Not to mention the etymology of so many of them that is simply laughable.
As for the last names, "Demarchis" and "Androupolos" doen't even exist. "Dimitrakopoulus" should be "Dimitrakopoulos". The "son suffixes" mentioned in the book as ancient Greek are NOT ancient Greek at all and the prefix "papa-" means that some ancestor has been a priest, but the prefix itself doesn't lend ANY prestige whatsoever.
The Greek part of the book is really useless to anyone wishing to create a Greek name (and I'm afraid that the problem is not limited to the Greek names only). All the names seem to be the fruit of a less than basic search on the web, propagating the same errors one can find in several web pages that deal with ethnic names and their "meaning".
Instead of wasting your money on this book, use google; chances are you will come up with a more plausible name than picking up one from this book
This revewer with a Greek background is careful to point out that they have limited expertise but that's hardly making things personal.
For more than thirty years I have been reading aobut the meanings of names. I have had an interest since early childhood and so it was natural that I opted to purchase this book when I came across it. I am quite sorry that I did. I spotted two differences within a very short time. In all the years I have been reading about names I have found that Marie always means sweet, or something very close to that meaning, and the name Myrna always means bitter. In this book those meanings have been reversed. It is doubtful to me that all the authors of the many books and articles I have read during the past twenty-plus years have been wrong and the authors of this book are now presenting the correct information (for the first time?). It strikes me as much more likely that the meanings of these names were reversed in this book, which certainly leaves me wondering about how many other meanings could have been applied to the wrong name. I cannot trust any of them. I won't even try. The money spent on a book of this type that cannot be trusted is a waste of money. A waste of my money anyway. I strongly suggest caution in accepting as fact anything in this book
This reviewer doesn't give a lot of examples so I suppose one could call this personal axe-grinding, particularly if it is the only problem with the book.
"The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook" is useful for some writing, but it also includes grave errors that may turn your story into unintentional comedy. I'll get to that in a moment; first, let me say that I liked Blythe and Sweet's essay on naming strategies, even though they make a few weird statements in it (a fictional town called Leslie might indeed seem isolated and cut off because Leslie means "from the gray fortress," but only if the reader already knows this). Names are important in a story, and the strategies have been useful to me.
The lists of names from different cultures also seemed good at first, while I was still browsing through cultures I don't know a thing about. Then came the lists dealing with my own culture, that of Sweden, and my enthusiasm died. A quick summary:
1) Kenyon has confused male and female names. Under Female, we find the quite masculine Adrian, Lage, Svante and a few others. The female names Bodil and Valborg turn up under Male.
2) Many of the names haven't been common for about a thousand years (Saxe, Alrik), are extremely rare (Guda), or simply aren't Swedish at all (Quenby).
3) The dots and rings are missing. It might seem overly picky to complain about something like that, but an A with a ring over it isn't just some kind of modified A--it's a whole other letter. Personally, when I'm studying names from a foreign culture that uses the Latin alphabet, I want the original spelling rather than an anglified version of it.
There are other things to complain about, but I'll stop there--obviously, using these lists to find names for Swedish characters may not give you the result that you want, and Swedes may end up laughing at your story. I don't know if it's the same with the other lists in the book, but until I do, I won't use the names "as is." I will, however, use them as starting points when I need realistic, diverse names and words for fantasy settings. In that context, I find the book very useful!
This reveiwer with a Swedish background seems to give a thoughtful "buyer beware" review. Does having some background in a particular culture and using that knowledge to backup pointing out the errors in the book count as "personal axe-grinding?"
Whilst the book contains many points of interest not available in most other 'nameing' books, it would be best to take all the information with a teaspoon of salt rather than the usual grain.
I cannot speak for the other non-English sections in the book, but the section on Japanese names is, for the most part, incorrect. She has personal names listed as family names and family names listed as personal names. She has girls names in the boys list and vice versa. She also has names listed that have never been used as names of people, though they might have been used as literary psudonyms.
Her definitions of the names also leave an enormous amount to be desired. The meaning of Japanese names depends upon the kanji (Chinese characters) used to write them. Two names that are pronounced the same might have radically different meanings because the kanji were different, and names with the same kanji and therefore meaning, might be pronounced differently. None of this is mentioned in her introduction.
Given the number and variety of mistakes in just this one section, I find it very hard to trust in the validity of the information she includes in the rest of the book. Perhaps she should have enlisted the aid of people from those cultures who could have given her accurate information rather than putting her information together from purely literary sources as it appears she has done.
This reviewer with a Japanese background points out flaws only in the one cultural section with which they are familiar which, as per some other reviews above, seems prudent.
This book was written with the sad misconception that a name itself can completely define your character- that's ridiculous. Who says a Bertha or Percy can't be daring, exciting, or sexy? Who says a Gertrude can't be a Dominatrix? I bought this book for the sole purpose of helping with my character's surnames- I have dozens of baby books that I can turn to for first names, thank you, but this book doesn't bother with surnames save for a handful for most nationalities. Beside that, I had to laugh when I read in the first chapter that the author actually named one of her characters "Joe Q. Public". In her "suspense thrillers". I'm sorry, but I've never read such a ludicrous name in MAD Magazine, let alone a serious thriller.
I wouldn't call this reviewer an axe-grinder but he does get personal by discussing the author rather than the content of the book, insofar as it pertains to help in naming characters for stories, I suppose. The topic of the lack of many surnames has come up in other reviews so it is hard not to take that seriously, and he does make a good point that there are many, many sources for first names (lots for free online). This review is one of the least extensive but still manages to make some good points.
It was amazingly disappointing, the contents of the book. Sure it may have had thousands of first names for every group from "Persian" to "Arthurian Legend", but equally as important is the surname. The surname sections were a joke -- no more than ten for any one ethnic group were listed. That's right -- TEN! After I use up all ten, say, German surnames, what's next? We really need a richer variety of last names to use from. Furthermore, I don't really think it necessary to know the meaning of tens of thousands of utterly obscure first names -- all the research went into creating yet another clone of a name-the-baby book instead of a good resource for first and last names from many lands. Also, adding a few Oriental countries to the mix would have been nice, too. The Japanese, Hindus and Thais all have a rich pool of first and last names to explore, and even the Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and Hmong have enough common names to warrant a chapter each in this book for anyone who wanted to say, name a Vietnamese character but couldn't think of anything other than Nguyen or Tran. A systematic search of first names to include all the names anyone's ever heard of, combined with a study of thousands of last names to include, could raise this book from a 3 to a 10.
This is one that keys mainly on the surnames issue but I don't see anything personal involved in the review.
Okay, I'm kinda lost on what makes you claim those reviews are about personal axe-grinding. Can you discuss the points they make, since you have the book, and tell me whether they bear anything to the truth. I was thinking about getting this book and if you tell me that they are in error regarding the surnames and the cultural errors, I might just pick one up for myself. I'd hate to get a copy, though, and find out that somehow you dismissed their points only to find they were actually fair assessments of the book and that the good reviews on the site were actually the ones in error. Thanks in advance for any specific input you can give on these issues.
