characters that give names a bad name

So I was thinking about all the perfectly good names that have been ruined by literature. Names like "Dorian," from The Picture of Dorian Gray. Now that's a good name. It's not a name like Adolph or Ebeneezer or Fagin, perhaps, which no one in their right mind would want to use anyway. It's a perfectly good, usable name, and now it's been ruined by Oscar Wilde.

Of course, there are other wicked characters who derive their names eponymously, like Juliette, created by the Marquis de Sade, who for whatever reason do not ruin their names. Juliette--now there's a frightening character. She's worse than Dorian by a thousand-fold. Perhaps that work never became popular enough for the world at large to be always reminded of her atrocities when they heard the name? Daphne du Maurier's Julian is also a pretty despicable character. But again, Julian is still used periodically...no doubt by people who are unfamiliar with the work.

Then there are the sad names--Tristan and Deirdre are the ones that come immediately to mind--that people seem attracted to anyway. Both names connote grief. "Deirdre," according to my names book, even means "great sorrow." And Tristan comes from the Latin "tristis," meaning "sad." But perhaps the romanticism of their stories--they both died for love!--makes the names still viable.

I wouldn't want my kid wasting away for love, but hey, that's me.