As a child, one of my prized books was a book of baby names and their meanings. Not because I was planning names for my own children, but because I found it fascinating to discover what people’s names ‘really meant’. I thought it gave me insight into their true character. It also gave me a certain type of power, coming to school and announcing to other children what their names meant.
My name is of Hebrew origin and means ‘Gift of God’; I tried to read as much as I could into that. I told James at school he had a very bad name, as his name means ‘Deceiver’. I wondered how anyone could call their child James, knowing this.
And then there was Matthew C., whose name was Greek for ‘Gift of God’. I always wanted to be his best friend, and I thought this linked us in some special way. I told him this theory, but he was not entirely convinced. When he moved to Iceland, he didn’t reply to the letter I sent him.
Perhaps I have disabused myself of some of the primitive notions I had about names as a child, but not entirely. Instinctually, I still feel that other ‘Nathans’ should (a) be friendly to me and (b) have some trait of Nathanness to them. Time has proven neither of these things to be true.
Just as important as the ‘meaning’ of names has been the antecedents for names. I have always loved the tension present in my given names – Nathan David – from the Old Testament figures with those names. Nathan is the brave prophet who rebuked the poet king for adultery and murder. David is my father’s name; that irony interests me too.
‘Nathan’ used to be a fairly rare given name, of which I was very proud. ‘Hobby’ is uncommon too, and it was strange when another family of Hobbys moved to our country town when I was eleven. We didn’t think they were related; years later we discovered they were second cousins, separated from our awareness by family secrets.
One of these Hobbys was called Joshua, and was about the same age as my brother Joshua. I didn’t know what to make of this idea – would it be like having a twin brother to have someone with the same name? Or did it make a person un-unique, did it compromise their specialness, their distinctiveness in the world? I leaned toward the latter interpretation, and thought it a terrible cruelty to be a Smith, or even worse a John Smith.
In the year below me at high school, there were two Laura Smiths. Different years were never known beyond vague rumours, and it took me a long time to work out they were talking about two different Laura Smiths. One of them I knew by sight; the other I didn’t. A year after I graduated, one of them died in a car accident. I wondered if it was the one I knew by sight, or the one I didn’t, and tried not to think of it as sadder if it was the one I knew by sight. I wondered what the surviving Laura felt, if it seemed a close call.
And then, finally, last year I met, in a manner of speaking, the only other Nathan Hobby I know of in the world. I found him on facebook. He’s younger than me and into football, from what I can gather about him. I thought there would have to be something essentially similar about us. But of course, there didn’t have to be. I still get a shock on my facebook feed when I read statements like ‘Nathan Hobby is no longer in a relationship’.
But then perhaps the more remarkable twin, an almost Borgesian one, is my literary twin, Nathaniel Hobbie. When I was working in a public library in 2004, his book arrived about the same time as my book came out. It was called ‘Priscilla and the Pink Planet’ and it’s about a little girl obsessed with pink. His career has been more successful than mine so far; he’s followed up with four other books about Priscilla.
It sounds like a Vonnegutian alter ego for me; I even started a novel called Lazarus the Pacifist Superhero with Nathaniel Hobbie as the main character. It makes it seem there must be some power to names and that out in the world are variations on each person.
Do you have a twin out there in the world?
Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth 
When I was a kid I used to devour the etymology-of-names section in my mum’s Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary (3rd volume!). When I began to write, I would plunder that for character names, based on their meanings. That book also had a dictionary of surnames. (What we did with our time before the internet…!?)
John and I both have namesakes who are very prominent on the net. His is just about the opposite of what any vegan would want to be – a charcutier (there are also many others out there who share his exact name, since in Ireland his surname is common, and the Irish post-famine have spread around the world. There’s even a Yeats poem that bears “his” name in the title).
My highly net-present U.S. namesake is also just about the opposite of me (don’t look her up, I warn you), though John says to say (joking, of course) he thinks there’s always hope 🙂
I also in my early twenties attended uni at the same time as another of my namesakes, and her dad was an academic, so that my teachers used to say, “Ah, I know your father”, and I would say, “No, I don’t think so!” Someone even contacted (and now follows) our blog because he used to know her and thought it might be me.
If it makes you feel any more unique, you’re the only Nathan I’ve ever known!
Also interesting is the phenomenon of name change. One of my forebears Who Shall Remain Nameless changed his first and second names, which affected my life directly (is my name not real?), and could pose an obstacle one day if future generations try to trace who we were. Other members of the family have also changed their names, and of course women often change their surnames, so that they are very hard to track down if, say, you went to school with them.
I even once knew a woman who “changed” her husband’s name (called him for years by another first name) because she couldn’t stand his name. And another who wouldn’t tell me her new husband’s first name because it embarrassed her.
Then there’s the actual baby name thing. I knew from when I was about 12 what I would call my first daughter if I one day had one; I even took that name as my “confirmation” name. I have an aversion to the idea of made-up names because of a sentimental attachment to etymology and a sense of continuity, resonance in meaning etc.
When you research family trees, one of the most curious things is to discover, at least in British families, how often in previous centuries siblings would be given such similar names (Marian, Mary, Emma-Ann, Emily, etc, all in one immediate family) — it bespeaks a very different idea of family and individuality I guess. Also the direct bestowal of a parent’s name (in my family, as in your example, the parent’s name tended to be given as a second name, at least to the first-born of each gender. Same in John’s.)
Apologies for this over-length response (I wonder if your blog will allow it). You hit on a fixation of mine, as it happens. Maybe this is true for many fiction writers, since we invent characters?
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Don’t apologise! Your comment is more interesting than my post. 🙂
That name change question is a fascinating one. On my maternal side, my great grandfather invented his name too and its caused decades of speculation and, recently,dogged research on my father’s part. I suppose all names, sooner or later, far enough back, or ‘made up’ or bestowed.
I would have thought Kinsella was a rare name; what an interesting thing to have Yeats write about you before you’re born. Most befitting.
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I’ve met a couple of other people named Wesley. Never liked any of them! Most of them do horrible things like add a ‘z’ and then expect that I want to be ‘Wez’ too. I know of a couple of namesakes, but nothing notable.
On my Dad’s side, one problem we have is the interchangable nature of the name Harry/Henry. Two generations had brothers Harry and Henry. My Dad is Harold (don’t call him Harry, or Henry) which he hates.
On Mum’s side the mother’s first name is given to the daughter as a second name. That ended when Mum had two boys. My ‘girl’ name was Ainslie Christina Elizabeth – I’m glad I came out a boy!
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But Wesley must be appropriate for a Uniting church candidate! That’s interesting about the Harry/Henry thing; I understand that Harry is a derivation of Henry. I think your girl name is ok.
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I have a twin too. I discovered this by googling myself (c’mon, who hasn’t done that?) Turns out there’s a Guy Salvidge Schooling of Motoring in the UK. Would you believe I hunted this Guy down on facebook to friend him? (kinda cyber-stalking). It’s possible we are even related distantly, given that I was born in the UK too.
It would really piss me off if he were a famous writer though :O
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That’s pretty cool Guy. School of Motoring indeed!
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Just did a bit of back reading over your blog Nathan – I used to follow your ModBlog. Very happy to discover you are still writing!
All I have to say on this is that you are the Truman Capote and the other Nathan Hobbie is your Gore Vidal. A literary doppleganger is surely more evil than most.
Cheers,
Erin.
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