Alright, so after a fair while of thinking that names are only significant to the people who carry them about, I have finally accepted that it can really matter what you call a character. In fact, I have gone so far as to realise that it would suit my purposes to give a _great_deal_ of significance to naming throughout my book.

Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary.

You see, most people have more than one name... when talking to your spouse, you might be one thing, but to colleagues something utterly different and to friends something else again. What you are called might reflect not only the relative status of who you are talking to, but your relationship to them, your importance to them and their mood. However, to readers, all of this can be a bit bloody confusing.

For example, I introduce a character who identifies herself entirely by the name 'Loyalty', a name that has powerful significance for her due to a quasi-religious group of which she is a member. In fact, the only person who doesn't call her 'Loyalty' is her husband, who prefers to call her 'Lola'.

There will be plenty of time to explain the significance of the naming later, and it would utterly destroy the structure of my story to talk about it this early. And yet, the only natural way for the husband and wife to talk is to have him call her 'Lola' and it would actually be out of character for him to call her anything else. So, I have a paragraph or two where Loyalty is introduced for the first time in the story and introduced as Loyalty. But she is then referred to for the remainder of the husband / wife dialog as Lola.

Without resorting to something really cheesy like "oh darling, I wish you wouldn't call me that" (which would probably be a lie, because... well, she married him and has no more than the average number of marital gripes), how else can I convey that Lola / Loyalty are the same person? Or, should I just assume that readers are clever enough to work it all out?

G

As you say, in dialogue someone will be variously refered to by their surname, first name, nickname, term of endearment, term of abuse, professional title, etc.
So long as you are consistant and use one name in the text, even if another name is used in the dialogue, the reader should be able to follow the story.

eg:

"How was your day, Lola?"
Loyalty turned to her husband, "Fine," she said.



- NaomiM

<Added>

Saying that, though, it does help to have some sort of introduction to the character near the start so you know that when someone is calling her Lola they are referring to her, although you don't need to say why she's called Loyalty. You don't say what pov it's in, but maybe it could simply be her thinking:
Lola, a name from her past, which only her husband continued to use. Everyone else called her Loyalty...
Or something like that.

Whose POV are you writing in, and is it first person or third person?
Susiex

Loyalty turned to her husband, "Fine," she said.

Dagnamit, that's too easy. Why am I unable to think in "easy"?
Thanks,

Susie, POV is Loyalty and third person.

If that's the case, Naomi's suggestion is great!
Like the name Loyalty.
Susiex