Tales from The Early Years – Jenna: Name Game
I’ve always found naming characters difficult. In my first novel I named the protagonists after people I knew – and killed my friend the writer Scott Andrews more than 40 times in the first nine chapters.
For The Dust Run, I struggled to find tough, plosive names like the ones in Terry Nation’s head. Names to rank alongside Dalek, Blake and Tarrant. And it’s not that easy.
So I thought I’d cheat.
First, Jenna’s friend in The Dust Run was called ‘Kebble’ – which I pinched from a minor character in the 1966 Doctor Who story Power of the Daleks. Script editor Ben Aaronovitch didn’t like that, so I looked through the credits of Terry Nation’s last Doctor Who story Destiny of the Daleks – from 1979, the same era as Blake’s 7. David Yip had played ‘Veldan’, which became the name of the young pilot Jenna knew when she was young. I also pinched ‘Jall’ – played in Doctor Who by Penny Casdagli – for the name of the thief Jenna teams up with in The Trial.
My masters, though, felt that these names sounded too “Sci-Fi”, and wanted something more everyday. So Veldan became ‘Townsend’, after a mate of mine. There was then a great deal of pondering before Jall became ‘Nick’. Which is a good name for a thief.
Simon Guerrier
Tags: Blake's 7, Dust Run, Jenna, Simon Guerrier, Trial
