My previous post discussed finding out the names of characters who were real historical figures and how I dealt with too many people with the same names. Next I needed to invent names for both fictional characters, like Rashi's servants and neighbors, and real folks whose names were unknown, like Rashi's wife and the parnas' daughter-in-law. My first caveat was to avoid any names I'd already used for other characters. Another was to only choose names that were actually used in 11th century France.
This was a relatively simple matter for the non-Jews. I had several histories of medieval Champagne and I borrowed names from various members of nobility, such as Catharina, Milo and Guy. For the Jewish men, I was able to find plenty of names among the Tosafists and throughout the Responsa literature Unfortunately I did not have a nice list of names back in 1997 such as Wikipedia now provides.
Finding Jewish women's names was difficult, as very few texts are written by or about women. I felt free to use biblical names (Sarah, Rivka, Judita), because Jewish men were frequently named this way. However I knew that Jewish women also used secular names; the problem was which secular names. My main source was the Jewish Museum in Paris, which in 1998 had an entire room of medieval cemetery inscriptions, and luckily for me, of course men and women were equally represented. I collected a quite a list, including Johanna, Yvette and Fleur. Another source was a book about Chretien de Troyes, creator of the King Arthur romances, who may have been born a Jew. The author of this biography pointed out that nobody born Christian was named Chretien, only converts. He backed this up with lists of names for inhabitants of 12th century Troyes: Christian and Jewish, men and women. The women's names were especially useful and I appropriated Brunetta and Columbine.
Lastly, there were characters who never got a name, like the parchment maker. Believe it or not, I didn't want to burden my readers with too many names. I would have used less but my editor insisted that readers relate better to a character with a name, rather than someone merely being called 'Shmuli's grandfather' or 'Fleur's cousin.' So these folks got names, even if they only appeared in a scene or two.
As I approach the end of the first draft of Book III - RACHEL and try to tie up all the lose ends, I realize I have so many characters that I don't remember their names [don't worry, Book III will have a family tree to help you sort everyone out]. Creating names for all these people was quite a challenge. First of all, many of them are historical figures and I wanted to use their real names, if I could find them, even for obscure ones like members of Count Thibault's retainers. But learning these real names caused new problems, because some of these folks had the same name (as in real life where I once attend a bat mitzvah reception where all five men at my table were named David). But readers become confused if several characters have the same name, so I felt compelled to avoid this as much as possible.
For example with Rachel's son Shemiah vs. Meir's study-partner Shemayah, I kept their real names and used different spellings. I had a different tactic for all the Samuel's; also using the Hebrew, Shmuel, as well as a nickname, Shmuli. Unfortunately, there were a few times when I gave up and made up a completely new name even though I knew the correct one. There were already too many Eliezer's (even with variant spellings), so I named Miriam's third son Elisha instead. I know that Rachel's daughter was actually named Miriam, but secondary characters with the same name as the leads would have been far too confusing, so she became Rivka. Of course, I made up that name for Rashi's wife, whose true name has been lost to us. Actually, I didn't just make it up. I read a legend that said he married a woman named Rivka, but the tale was clearly false because it had Rivka as a duke's daughter. Another legend gave his wife's name as Miriam, but of course that was also impossible. I knew that neither his daughters or mother was named Rivka, so I went with it.
When I couldn't find a character's real name, or the character was completely fictional, I still wanted names that were authentic for the 11th century and for the country they lived in. How I did that will be in my next post.