One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is an eye-opening novel about a single ordinary day in the life of a Russian sentenced to a Siberian labor camp for ten years. His crime is being captured by the Germans during World War II and managing to escape. The main character’s last name is not Denisovich. That is his patronymic. His full name is Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. So, the prison guards refer to him Shukov.

The first and second name combination is used by acquaintances who are similar to him in status. Ivan Denisovich works with a fellow prisoner from Latvia, Janis Kildigs. They refer to each other as Vanya. Knowing a bit about names in other cultures helps the reader understand the significance of this. Close friends use personal familiar names with each other in Russia. Ivan and Janis are the same name in two different languages; both are versions of John. These two men using the Russian nickname Vanya when addressing each other are similar to close friends calling each other Johnnie in English.

A problem that authors often face is taking into account other people’s ignorance (and sometimes prejudices) about other cultures when naming characters. There is no way to read another’s minds to figure out what characters’ names are expected. When writing a novel about a romance between two people from two different continents who meet briefly on vacation, I had to deal with the reader’s opinions about names. One major character is from a suburb of Stockholm, so I chose the Swedish name Tove (pronounced Toe-vay) for her. Even though she went through the trouble of explaining how it was pronounced and spelled when she met an American my beta readers still thought Tove was pronounced Tuv. So, I changed the last “e”’ to “a” as Tova is also a Swedish name.

Yet, her new American friend, Timothy, who is from southwest Texas still struggles occasionally to pronounce it correctly. Tova has a worse time with his name. The “th” combination not used in modern Swedish. Readers could not understand why Tova kept referring to him as “Timoty.” His name is not easy for her to say even though she knows how to pronounce Thor, because this Nordic deity’s name has a voiced “th” and “Timothy” has an unvoiced “th.” (The two different pronunciations of “the” in English is an example of this.)

It would seem cute in a play or movie to have friends who are becoming increasingly close to each other still have difficulties pronouncing their foreign names. However, this becomes awkward in writing. I cannot simply say that she pronounced his name with a Swedish accent and expect the reader to remember that with each encounter. It is a bit of a jolt to see the name spelled as it is pronounced and a reminder of their differences which could threaten to make their love untenable.

Perhaps, I should have come up with a familiar name that they could share, such as “Tovy.” That would be similar to “Vanya” which the two characters from different lands shared in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. But, I bet readers would still complain about not knowing how to pronounce it.