What’s in a name? More than Shakespeare might have led us to believe, according to research. Ever since 1985, when a study found that people tend to prefer the letters of their own initials over the other letters of the alphabet, research has confirmed the name-letter effect, proving that not only do consumers favour brands matching their initials, they are actually more likely to donate to relief efforts for a natural disaster such as a hurricane if they share an initial with that disaster. How far the name-letter effect influences our bigger life decisions – where we live, our choices of career or life partner – remains contentious, but there are clear indicators that, far from serving simply as identifiers, the names we are given at birth have the power to influence our psychological, social and economic outcomes.
Florence Knapp’s strikingly assured debut novel, The Names, takes this idea and gives it a high-concept twist. It is October 1987 and Cora, trapped in a wretched and abusive marriage, has just had a second baby, a son. As she and her nine-year-old daughter Maia push the pram together through the debris of the Great Storm to register the birth, they talk about names. Cora’s husband Gordon has always insisted that the baby will take his name, a tradition passed down through his family, but Cora shrinks from the prospect. It is not just that she dislikes the name Gordon, “the way it starts with a splintering wound that makes her think of cracked boiled sweets, and then ends with a downward thud like someone slamming down a sports bag”. She fears that the name will force an unwelcome shape on her baby son, corrupting his innocence, locking him into a chain of violent, domineering men. Cora prefers Julian which, in her book of baby names, means sky father; she nurses the naive hope that, since the name honours Gordon’s paternity, he will find it an acceptable compromise. Meanwhile, Maia suggests Bear because it sounds “all soft and cuddly and kind … but also, brave and strong”.
At the registrar’s desk Cora must pick one – and with that the narrative neatly divides into three. First Cora thrills and terrifies herself by impetuously deciding on Bear. The second time she finds just enough courage to opt for Julian. Finally she folds and helplessly agrees to Gordon. Three names, three choices with very different consequences, and, from this point on, three distinct stories that fork away from one another down their own particular paths, all with their roots in a single decision on a storm-torn October day.
The novel spans the next 35 years, each section set seven years apart and each divided into three: Bear, Julian and Gordon. The rigid structure can occasionally feel overly schematic but for the most part it works; partly because it helps the reader to hold three alternate realities in mind simultaneously, but more because Knapp has such a light touch. Deftly and with great tenderness she explores the complex and often horrifying effects of domestic abuse. She offers no easy answers. The Cora who decides for her son’s sake to stand up to her brutal husband can no more guarantee her own and her children’s future safety and happiness than the Cora who seeks to protect them by placating him. A boy who grows up never knowing his father carries a different kind of burden from a son whose family is torn apart by violence and a different burden again from the boy who is relentlessly bullied at home, but all three are fundamentally shaped by their experience. All three, as they face the possibilities of the future, must come to a reckoning with their emotional past.
Knapp’s plotting is skilful, her tapestry of stories cleverly woven. Characters that play a significant role in one of the three storylines appear fleetingly in others. Personality traits and preferences emerge in subtly different forms. As nature meets nurture, Cora, Maia and Bear/Julian/Gordon grow into distinct versions but remain recognisably themselves. Each version contrives to inform the others. There are times – inevitable, perhaps, in what is essentially three novels in one – when scenes feel rushed, depth sacrificed to the breadth of the enterprise. Cora’s GP husband Gordon, a paragon outside the home, a monster within it, is a frustratingly one-dimensional villain. Such cavils aside, The Names stands out as a compelling and original debut, a book that asks at least as many questions as it answers. In the end, and despite the neatness of its premise, this is not so much a book about the impact of our names but about the implications of our decisions, how a moment of courage or recklessness or blind terror can act like a finger on a scale, shifting the balance of a life for ever.
The Names by Florence Knapp is published by Phoenix (£16.99). To support the Guardian buy a copy atguardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.