When reading stories, readers like the feeling of an immersive world that they can actually inhabit along with the characters.  And it’s often tiny details, not long-winded descriptions, that can provide that realism or, for that matter, jar if you get it wrong.

There are many such details, but one concerns what people call each other, and even what they call themselves.  We all have an official name.  The one on our birth certificate, maybe, but many of us barely use it.  I once knew a man whose first names were Frederick Basil, but everyone, including his mother, called him Pat.  On the other hand we might have many names depending on different circumstances.

Let’s look at a few of my characters.  We might start with the two friends at the centre of my ‘Saltbury Chronicles’ series: Hazel and Tina.  Officially Tina’s name is Christina Louise Burns, and very occasionally, when she’s very angry indeed, her mother calls her that.  When she’s a bit less angry, she might reduce it to ‘Christine Burns’.  The headmistress of her school calls her ‘Christine’ when she’s in a good mood, or just Miss Burns.  Her friends call her ‘Tina’ or more familiarly ‘Teen’, but her first girlfriend, Rosie, who is always a little in awe of her, sticks with ‘Tina’.  Her father calls her ‘Princess’.  The love of her life, Carol, calls her ‘Kitten’, or ‘Tina Louise’ if she’s teasing.  Yvonne often calls her ‘Oi you, Christine Burns!’ while little Millie, of course, calls her ‘Mum’.

Hazel, is officially Hazel Sofia Fauld.  But she’s ‘Haze’ to her friends, ‘Baby Girl’ or ‘darling’ to her two Mums, and ‘Bunny’, or just ‘Bun’, to her big sister Roisin.  Mind you, she tends to revert to ‘Hazel’ when people are speaking to her more seriously.  Her beloved Annie, with her mid-Atlantic way of speaking, calls her ‘Babe’ and Hazel is the only person she uses that term to.  Other friends get ‘Sugar’, ‘honey’ and so on, but only Hazel is Babe.  In fact it soon becomes clear that something is very wrong indeed if Annie calls Hazel by name.

So far we’ve had names that people use to the person’s face, and there are plenty more in the way of pet names, familiar names and official names.  For example, Lexi calls Rosie ‘Poppet’.  Little Mandy calls Yvonne ‘Von’ because at four she can’t pronounce the whole thing.  Mind you, as we’ll find out in ‘Sofia’, she still calls her ‘Von’ when she’s twenty.  Our two hulking rugby players, Mark and Brendan, each call the other ’Baby’, which always makes Tina smile.  Almost everyone calls tug captain Chantel Barham ‘Skipper’, while non-binary Vickie Briggs prefers the more masculine ‘Vic’.

Rock goddess Debbie Stewart is another mass of names.  She is married to Martine Fauld and her real name is officially now Deborah Fauld.  But she still uses her maiden name, Debbie Stewart, on stage.  Her manager and life-long friend Johnny Sherwin often calls her ‘Little one’.  It was the pet name he gave her when he used to baby-sit her as an infant, but he still uses it even though she’s now in her forties.  To her wife Debbie is always ‘Debs’, but she is ‘Debbie-mum’ to Roisin and Hazel, or ‘Mum-mum’ to Sofie and Danielle.  And talking of little Sofie, she is officially Hannah Sofia, but the family call her ‘Monster’.  She even refers to herself that way much of the time.

There are other names that characters don’t use to a person’s face, but might use to refer to them to others.  In particular, there are the rarely complimentary nicknames for teachers.  The Headmistress, Miss Stone, is ‘Old Stoneface’.  The dreaded games teacher, Miss Baxter, is ‘Queen Bitch’.  Elderly History teacher, and nicotine addict, Miss Carter is ‘Smokey Eth’ and so on.  Pupils too have their nick names, so Brenda George is ‘Weird Brenda’, although people actually address her as ‘Bren’.

Even out in the adult world people have nicknames and they can be for groups, like the Sappho’s ‘Dockers’ as well as individuals like Hazel, who the ‘Dockers’ take to calling ‘Babydyke’ behind her back.

Names then, are not fixed.  They are constantly changing tags, depending on who is speaking and what mood they are in.  It all adds a little authenticity.