Naming a person in the flesh came easily to me thanks to the baby name books on my shelf purchased while I was pregnant. I named my infant daughter before I met her. I had chosen a backup name in case I gave birth to a boy. I easily named the second baby, having reserved the boy’s name, and only had to dream up a girl’s name, which came in handy. It was a joy to have God surprise me.
Inventing characters in my novel came naturally to me and naming them was easy as their identities came floating down to the page within the setting and era in which they lived. I consulted my old Baby Name books anyway, to see about special meanings. Saying the names aloud, and then tapping them out on the keyboard felt natural: Carol, Joe, Tommy, Ellie. I imagined the characters each looked like their author given names. They lovingly said them in dialog to each other.
Taking my husband’s last name when I married was less natural, since for the first 28 years of my life, I was always a Paprock. Even that name was changed, accidentally, from Paprocki. The latter is a popular Polish name of descendants from Poland living in Chicago. When my great grandfather had his truck painted, his customers noticed before he did that the “i” was left off the end, and his caged chickens rode around the south side of Chicago in the Paprock truck. His sons took on the name when they were registered for school, and any children born since went by Paprock.
Changing my last name from Paprock to Brenner came slowly and deliberately. I kept a separate checking account under my maiden name as a newlywed. I didn’t feel compelled to write Brenner down officially until I needed to renew a government-issued ID. Then when I switched jobs, I was comfortable introducing myself as a Brenner, and noticed that moving up in the alphabet in the office directory had its advantages. I was no longer in the middle of the pack and there were fewer requests about my last name’s spelling.
I named my first fiction novel, “Wheels to Liberty,” back in 2011 when Chapter One was first penned. The original title is a play on words of wheels in wheelchairs offering a sense of independence to get around, like that liberating feeling of having one’s first drivers’ license. The word, liberty, was patriotic during WWII. In the novel, two characters are restricted from driving, and one must use a wheelchair. Today, there are women in the Middle East and living in Afghanistan who are prohibited from driving, or worse. The theme of empowering women to take the wheel stood out to me.
Like my great grandfather’s chicken truck, I’m painting over the title page, but not by accident. It’s time for the novel to grow up and take on a proper name that will resonate with more readers of Women’s fiction. Giving up the original name Wheels to Liberty feels much like the transformation when taking on a new identity. It’s a rite of passage, a milestone, yet it is renaming the same holistic being, if you consider a book to bring a story alive. This debut novel deserves a title that conveys courage and hope in dark times. The chosen keywords will invoke a feeling of promise and intrigue. The title chosen will be one that a reader will want to get to know, and look what’s inside, and by the end, find out what makes this new title tick!
I’ll be unveiling a new title next month and subsequently celebrating the rebirth of this novel after an editing process is complete. I’m in suspense, too! This naming process is more difficult than any process I’ve experienced, and the weight of its importance feels like all others I’ve gone through. At the end of the day, it’s what is inside that counts.
