THE BIZ : A Thorne by Any Other Name

Jason and Dorian make love. Thorne tells Ridge that Macy had an affair with Jake. Faison escapes once again. After Drucilla signs a modeling contract with Blade, John tells Neil to hire her to model for Jabot.

Call me Ishmael. Or Hutch, Kayla, Shane, Lujack or Scorpio. Call me anything, just don’t call me late for my soap.

“In the ‘60s, the idea was to make soap opera character names as everyday as possible,” says Douglas Marland, head writer for “As the World Turns.” “Now it’s like a contest to see who can come up with the most unusual names.” Although Marland prefers traditional names, his show is no laggard, with Courtney, Connor, Iva, Ambrose, Caleb and Linc, among others.

Those silly monikers help tell the story, says Bill Bell, who shepherds both “The Bold and The Beautiful” and “The Young and The Restless.” “A name is befitting of the character. You’re building a portrait,” says Bell, whose “B&B;” features Thorne, Ridge, Cricket and Brooke.

“We take a tremendous amount of time to come up with the right name, long after we’ve worked out the background and we know where they’re going,” says Marland. “ATWT” has a true-blue, patriotic family, with Woody, for Woodrow, and Linc, for Lincoln; a farm family whose salt-of-the-earth women are called Iva, Ellie and Meg; and a young man battered by fate and “searching for himself,” whose name is Holden. Apologies to J. D.