Hello everyone!
I'm hoping to pick your brains here. I'm starting to futz around with a new MS, and I've got an important character but I'm not quite sold on what his name should be yet. Currently, he's going by Henry Valentine, which I think is a name that suits him, but I also really feel that Valentine is an overused name in fiction, so I'd rather not fall into that trap.
So, a bit of context: It's a fantasy world, but I'm trying to set it in more of a 1940s urban US analogue. The character currently known as Valentine is morally murky at best. There's some murders going on, and one of the mysteries is how much Valentine is involved. Otherwise, here's a couple quotes about him:
"Henry Valentine, Brattle’s titan of industry, the richest of the rich. He had his fingers in steel, transportation, and banking, just to name a small portion. He was also widely rumored to have dealings in the less legal side of things, although [the police] had never been able to prove anything, and even if they did, Valentine was rich enough to get away with most of it."
"She’d seen his picture, of course. There was hardly a week that went by where the papers weren’t printing it: Henry Valentine at the grand opening of a new business, Henry Valentine attending a charity gala, Henry Valentine at the opera, Henry Valentine meeting with politicians. He was a busy man, Henry Valentine, and the papers loved him for it."
Any thoughts on directions naming could go would be greatly appreciated, including if you feel I'm off-base about Valentine being a bit of a cliché name. He's a key player in the story, so I've got to get the name just right.
I like to use baby name databases that I can search by meaning, origin, and gendered/non-gendered specifications. There are a METRIC TON of them, just Google and you'll trip on one. Or you could even just Google "names meaning ?" and fill in the blank yourself... It'll come up with a number of databases and lists with your name and close meanings...
As I read it, the Simon and Garfunkel song "Richard Cory" popped to my mind. Lines like: He freely gave to charity
He had the common touch
And they were grateful for his patronage
And they thanked him very much... That's not overly helpful, I realize, but perhaps you could allude to it with a name like "Corey Richardson" I'm not sure whether Corey was a common name in the 1940s, and that might either be a good or bad thing. But Richardson is a common name, but also suggests (perhaps) royalty -- King Richard.