She said: What's in a name?

As an ever-aspiring writer, I'm very concerned with the quality of any future work I happen to produce. I want to contribute something meaningful, subversive, significant, and entertaining to the dusty annals of literature.

But more importantly, as a wildly-vain narcissist, I'm even more concerned with my legacy, of how my work will be regarded long after I'm dead. Even though I won't be around anymore to attend local book signings and schmooze with my devoted fan base, I want to still matter. I want my novels (or poems, or plays, or memoirs...I have not yet decided exactly which medium I want to be most famous for) to still resonate in the literary field, to hold a certain amount of timeless relevance, to carry a definitive clout among scholars and students alike. I want to be remembered and revered, and that's exactly why I need to figure out the best proper adjective form of my last name.

Many of history's great writers have the luxury of having their last name transform neatly into a strong and memorable proper adjective; consequently, this same proper adjective is then used to describe any work of art that portrays any distinct traits or style of that particular author. For example, if a play ends in heart-breaking tragedy -- or, for the more erudite reader, if a sonnet is composed of absolutely perfect meter and rhyme scheme -- then that play (or sonnet) is described as being Shakespearean in nature. If a story attempts to be bigger than life, ambitiously trying to include all of the accepted conventions of the epic poem, then it'll be described as being inherently Homeric or Miltonic. If something is clever and sharp-witted, it's Wildean; if something is overtly political with a grim futuristic view, it's Orwellian; if something is whole-heartedly British, it's Dickensian; and so on and so on and so on.

The common theme among each of these adjective forms of proper names is that they all sound good. They roll off the tongue effortlessly and melodically. The sound of it is just so appealing to the ear. It's fun to hear and even more fun to say. And when pronounced with just the right inflection, along with the right cadence and the right amount of conviction, these adjectives carry with them an indisputable sense of prestige. Call it what you want -- cachet, dignity, power, esteem, renown -- it has all of these qualities. Being the sensory creatures that we are, those just look and sound right.

Unfortunately, I don't think my last name transitions as seamlessly into its own catchy adjective. My favorite ending is the -ic, it just sounds so stately and intellectual. I don't know how well it works with my name, but I'm very fond of it. I suppose you can also adjective-ize it by tacking on an -ean or -ian, but I don't think it fits just right, there's no ring to it. I don't know if it's the wrong amount of syllables or what, but it's too much of a mouthful, it's too clumsy and awkward.

And if push comes to shove, there are a number of other suffixes to use, such as -like (I'm not crazy about this one at all, it has no style), -istic (it doesn't blow me away either, but I guess I could live with it), and -esque (this is definitely my favorite of these three, there's some charm to it). In the end, though, I'm not entirely sold on any of them. All three of them are a little too generic and commonplace for my taste. They seem like the kind of endings that can be affixed to any name, regardless of how important or unimportant they may be. These are pretty much last resorts.

Either way, I shouldn't stress out about it too much. I'm sure it'll work itself out on its own. It's like any kind of nickname; you can't decide yourself if you suddenly want to start being called "Iceman" or "Maverick" or "T-Bone" -- it just has to happen, naturally and organically. Nicknames can't be chosen; they have to be assigned to you. That's how it works. So in that case, I'll just get comfortable and wait.