Of all the character names I’ve come across this year so far, the most odd-sounding of all has to be the one found in Jeff Nichols’ Mud. And it’s not even the title character’s name (which is literally Mud), that fits the texture of the movie in the most perfect way, nor gives a sense of place and culture and childhood identity quite like the sidekick of Ellis, the protagonist.
Ellis’s friend’s name is Neckbone. It’s another one of those elements of a film you just can’t explain, but it feels so well suited to the material in the strangest way. It has the sound of a nickname like Hayseed or Bronco but is even more backwoods sounding and less sensical. And it’s never explained, which again, is the right choice. It’s actually a movie full of good names, from Neckbone, to McConaughey’s Mud, to Reese Witherspoon’s character and object of Mud’s affection named Juniper, which like The Great Gatsby’s Daisy serves to illuminate her objectification by our hero.
Rarely do we get to see writers, and I assume it comes down almost exclusively to the screenwriters when we concern ourselves with character names, that play with language throughout their scripts the way that many allow themselves to play with names. Writers who are most celebrated for the poetry and playfulness of their dialogue, I’m thinking of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers here, tend to almost uniformly come up with perfect-sounding names for their characters. I suspect this is a result of having keen ears for sounds that fit together in a way that suits the tone you’re trying to set for your movie. Movies that feel like they’ve established a distinct and pervasive tone throughout usually also feature names that advance this general feeling. It’s one of the more difficult aspects of movies to qualify, but on some level at least, it’s impossible not to appreciate.