I began to think about the power of names early on when the website I was using to define some of the most obscure vocabulary made the point that the name Case might derive from how his body is no more than a case for his mind, just like the physical housing of a computer has little to do with the actual content. I think this reading into his name has merit, though, as multiple blog entries already attest to, Case's relationship with his body is quite complex.
I next began to think about names in the context of computer science. From what I remember from my one semester of the class (THOSE WHO KNOW BETTER, PLEASE COMMENT AND CORRECT!), some of the most important proofs in computer science involve referring to programs by a 'name' that's actually their entire content (written out in assembly language, the string of 1s and 0s). Knowing the assembly language string of a program fully describes everything the program is and does (at least until programs develop some kind of consciousness and/or the issue of 'souls' gets involved...). In this context, a true name carries a certain power over a program that we can perhaps extend to the AIs in Neuromancer.
Throughout the novel, Gibson makes it clear that names carry much importance with passages like "To call up a demon you must learn its name. Men dreamed that, once, but now it is real in another way. You know that, Case. Your business is to learn the names of programs, the long formal names, names the owners seek to control. True names..." (243). The 'power of true names' motif abounds from fantasy (in Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy, 'magic' derives from knowing the true names of things) to the Bible (the ancient Hebrew or Greek etymology of different names is often hugely revealing). I like the idea of connecting the ascribed importance of 'true names' to the origination of language itself (thanks wikipedia )!
So (and I hope we can get into this tomorrow), what might be some of the meaning behind some of the names in the book?
oooh, cool idea!
The one that (perversely) popped into my head was Molly, because her name is one of the only ones that isn't obviously an invention of Gibson's. For one thing, I think that the name highlights her humanness and her similarity to us as readers, a perhaps needed reminder because of all of her body modifications. I think of 'Molly' as a name associated with a fiery, rebellious, and independent character. Whether this is a fail-proof association or not in a wider context, it does seem to fit here.
A couple of characters that seem relevant:
Moll Cutpurse - of "Roaring Girl" fame. So named partially because Moll was a popular name at the time for a disreputable woman. She is a thief and cross-dresser, which was especially shocking at the time of the play's writing (1610-ish). She destroys all logical expectations of femininity; she is aggressive and challenges men to duel over woman's honor. To make matters worse, she is a thief, living and succeeding in the underworld of society. Despite all of her perceived shortcomings, she is a sympathetic character in the play.
Molly Millions also destroys our expectations of a woman character: she is the athletic, aggressive fighter, not Case. Besides being physically dominant, she continues to destroy gender stereotypes by rejecting the idea of a tranquil, domestic life at the end of the book.
Moll Flanders - from the Daniel Defoe novel. For one thing, Moll was also once a prostitute, though this is only a small similarity between her and Molly Millions. She is a member of the underclass, conning the richer members of society to scrape out a living while simultaneously sabatoging them by revealing to the reader how ridiculous they are.
Molly is a hired bodyguard, and therefore more legitimately earns her money, but she still relies largely upon the rich, and she is part of a team that is working to take down the Tessier-Ashpool clan, which is a grotesque and exaggerated fantasy of how bad the upper echelons of society can become.
So, both of these figures are from way old literature, and actually they're not even technically called Molly (though Moll and Molly are both derived from Mary and are clearly almost identical). But for some reason, Molly Millions reminded me of them as I was reading, and I think they provide a good example of how characters named 'Molly' tend to act.
Armitage is actually a 13th century version of "hermitage," accord to the OED. This seems particularly fitting, what with Armitage being a sort of physical and mental hideaway from the rest of the world for Corto (which, with my piddly knowledge of spanish, is short or cut, which seems apt), but less head-whacking than being named hermitage, and there's also the invocation of the past, and reality/spellings/people morphing over time.
There's a point where one of the guys makes a reference to Judas, then immediately references Riviera as Peter. This brought to mind biblical connotations of Peter, particularly the whole denying Christ before the cock crow. Somewhat foreshadows Riviera's betrayal of the group, though I could be grasping at straws with that one.
On page 250, 3JAne calls Maelcum "Mr. Malcolm." Really stuck out to me, a sense of refinement and gentrification one her part, but also something more?
Also, interesting that numbers come before names for the T-As. Very deinidividualizing, highlighting the importance of the whole over the individual, and the hive mind construct.
It's also interesting to see how the names from Neuromancer have been taken since the book was written. There's a 1994 cyberpunk anime whose title character is Armitage (she's like a replicant); Wintermute is a pretty common screen name (go figure), but also the name of a graphics engine...
I didn't catch the Maelcum / Malcolm bit. That actually makes a lot of sense. Are we to understand that Maelcum is something of a modified version of the name Malcolm, or is 3Jane just butchering his name the way Case does with "Jersey Bastion"?
Another name worth thinking about is Corto - apparently there's a famous Italian comic (１９６７－１９８９） about a sailor named Corto Maltese. Not sure if there's a greater connection to the character in this novel.
Lupus Yonderboy, the Panther Modern leader, is described as something resembling a pink cat-boy. "Lupus" is Latin for "wolf." It's also a type of autoimmune disease.
"Clinically, it can affect multiple organ systems including the heart, skin, joints, kidneys and nervous system...Drug-induced lupus erythematosus, a drug-induced form of SLE; this type of lupus can occur equally for either gender." (Wikipedia entry on Lupus erythematosus)
The drug-induced part really reminded me of Case.
I don't know if "Yonderboy" has any significance, but it made me think of "Wonder Boy," which was a Sega videogame in the 80s that my cousin used to play.
[Edit]: I googled "yonderboy" and Wikipedia had something to say about this, as well. "In John Brunner's influential 1968 New Wave SF novel Stand on Zanzibar, "yonderboy" is futuristic slang for commercial astronaut. " (entry on Neuromancer)