The process of naming characters is a fascinating area of young adult literature. In some of the best books, characters' names have been chosen or devised so carefully that they qualify as poetry. Many of them are phonologically interesting, employing such poetic devices as rhyme, repetition, and rhythm. The communication is often on more than one level with different readers appreciating different connotations and different layers of symbolism. And also like poetry, they are semantically compact in that they communicate a great deal of information within a very few syllables….
Once I began noticing interesting names, they seemed to appear in almost everything I read. But a nagging suspicion began to grow that perhaps I was reading more into the names of characters than their creators ever intended…. As a way of checking my suspicions, I decided to write to an author and ask specifically about the process of creating names. I chose to write to Robert Cormier because of the craftsmanship shown in his three books: [The Chocolate War, I Am the Cheese, and After the First Death]…. Cormier is one of a relatively small number of contemporary authors for young readers who makes use of the full range of techniques available to skilled literary artists. (p. 3)
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