Book Review: The Names by Florence Knapp

I’m a total name nerd so this book immediately appealed to me when I heard the premise. My girls love hearing what their “almost names” were (Eleanor and Violet) or what they might have been called if they were boys (Hartley and Freddie). When I hear about a new baby being born, I want to hear the name more than I care about weight or length and of course I want to hear the middle name too!

Cora is mother to 9-year-old Maia and a newborn son. As the story opens, Cora is heading out with Maia to register her son’s birth and therefore officially name her baby boy. As far as her son is concerned, the name has been decided. He will be named Gordon, after his father. But Cora dreams of naming him Julian and when she shares this with Maia, her young daughter says that the name she would choose for her little brother would be Bear.

From there the story splits into 3 parts: Gordon, Julian, and Bear. We see 3 different versions of this family’s future, depending on which name this baby ends up. The book follows them over the next few decades, moving forward 7 years each time, each 7 year period containing 3 separate sections. If it sounds confusing it’s because it honestly is. As well as seeing what happens to Gordon/Julian/Bear, we also follow Cora and Maia and sometimes their grandmother, her old boyfriend, and their neighbours. It’s a lot of timelines and characters to keep track of and I’ll admit that I found myself getting muddled between which version was which.

Gordon/Julian/Bear isn’t a different character in each iteration because he has a different name but because of how the world around him reacts to his name, particularly his father, who is a highly abusive husband in every version. What Cora names her son is a representation of a choice she makes within her marriage and for her children and we see that play out in each timeline.