A good deal has been written concerning the advisability of using only
short and simple names for most characters in the photoplay. Others
have advised photoplay authors to try to discover unhackneyed names
for their characters. There are, of course, hundreds of short and
appropriate "first" names for people of different nationalities; the
trouble, especially with amateur writers, is that such names as Tom,
Jack, Jim, and Charley, and May, Mary, Grace, Ethel, and Kate, are
used over and over again, and without any regard to the surname which
follows them. Simple and common names _are_ desirable, so long as they
really fit the characters who bear them. John and Tom and Mary and
Kate are names that will be used over and over again, both in fiction
and in photoplay. But unusual names are desirable too, provided they
fit the characters. The work of an amateur writer can almost always be
told by the names he gives his characters.
In the writing of photoplays, where the author has no description to
rely on to explain who and what his characters are, there is especial
need of names that will help to indicate the social status of his
different characters. In real life, a bank president is as likely to
be a Casey or a Smith as he is to be a Rutherford or a Pendleton, but
the chances are that, when given to a great banker, either of the last
two names would make a greater impression on "popular" spectators.
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