have you ever noticed when you go on a road trip that the signs you see showing the names of towns would make great names for characters in a novel? here's what i mean:
Ayer Littleton
Webster Sturbridge
Preston Ledyard
Sterling Moosup
Jewett Griswold
and my favorite - Cudworth Shrewsbury
yeah, they just get weirder and weirder, don't they?
it has long been a secret fantasy of mine to write a short story that incorporates these strangely impossible names for its fictional characters - i suppose there is a remote chance that there are people somewhere who actually answer to names like these... very, very remote
i think it would be more difficult to come up with these random names in a region where there is an abundance of, say, Native American place names (tahopakaliga? econolockahatchee? penobscot? hammonnassett? it would be tough to make names out of those incredible words, right?) it would probably also work with Spanish- or German-sounding names, or even where other languages like French and Scandinavian were prominent - but for now i'll stick to English words that i am able to join together to make credible-sounding names...
yeah, this is what i do for fun when i'm looking out the window at road signs - even more fun than those silly South of the Border billboards!!
and that's my thought for today, the first day of february... happy FEB, everyone!
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