A Name to Conjure With

The naming of cats, TS Eliot tells us, is difficult and a game that’s sure to spoil your holiday. He might as well have been talking about the lip-gnawing, brow-furrowing, page-flipping, head-scratching frustrations of naming characters for a work of fiction.

Considering the amount of thought that goes into naming a cat or a character, it’s always surprising to me how arbitrarily we tend to name people in real life. My mom babysat for a kid named Scott and always liked the name, so here I am. I watch friends and family…