Where did Mark Twain get the idea for Huck Finn to have nine names: “Huck” and eight aliases? Nine names for one child needs explaining.

As I said in the last post, Huckleberry Finn is a multiple personality scenario: a boy copes with child abuse by adopting alternate identities. Why would one runaway boy have eight different aliases or pseudonyms unless he had multiple personality?

Most novelists—Twain included (see past posts)—do not construct their major characters. Major characters “arrive,” and once they “come alive” to the novelist, are experienced as more or less autonomous people.

So it was probably Huck who told Twain that he had nine names.

“Why do you need nine names?” Twain asked Huck.

“Because ‘Huck’—we—are really nine people,” and he introduced the others.

Twain thought the public would never buy it. And after all, it was his novel. But he needed Huck. So they compromised.

“You can use the nine names,” said Twain, “but you all must pass as one person, as far as the readers are concerned. Act like one person who is just pretending.”

Well, Huck had no problem with that, since he was the group’s host and spokesman, and they frequently passed for one person, anyway.

If you have a better explanation for why one runaway child needed so many names, please submit your comment.