What’s in a Name?
The other day I mentioned that I needed three things to write a book and one of those things was the main characters’ names. Their names are important because for me, they become that character and I can’t imagine any other name for that person the further I get into the story. I mostly use the name’s meanings to decide on my characters’ names, but sometimes I’ll just use a name because I thought it was cool too.
Of course, just like titles (but this happens less often than title changes), authors sometimes don’t get to keep a character’s name. Usually it’s because the author has unwittingly given several characters names that start with the first letter, which might work fine in real life (I’m on of three Ps! Alliteration anyone? 
) but not so much in fiction. It gets confusing for the reader to differentiate the characters in their mind as they’re reading along if the names are too similar looking or even sounding! Another reason authors have been asked to change names is if the author chose a main character’s name that happened to be a really popular authors main character’s names (like Edward and Jacob for instance). The hero’s name in Scions: Resurrection, Jachin (pronounced Yah-kin), was originally Riot, but I was asked to change it. So, to the baby name websites I went, where I actually found a BETTER name that truly fit his character in the story. Jachin is a biblical name that means “he who establishes” and it fit perfectly for Jachin and what he accomplished in Scions: Resurrection. So sometimes having to change the name can ultimately be a good thing.
Have there been any character’s names that have stuck with you, either because they truly fit the character or because you just thought they were cool. Got any great names to share? Or stories behind cool names?
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Don’t forget to check out Nalini’s newest book, ARCHANGEL’S KISS!
Congrats on the release, Nalini!
17 people have bellied up to “What’s in a Name?”
I love my name but it took me a really LONG TIME, like 20 years to love it. Everyone calls me Mollie but my real name is Amalia and I’ve had some people get mad at me when they find out. “That’s way cooler then Mollie, I am never calling you Mollie again!” “umm, ok.”
More recently I have been pondering pulling a Lorelai Gilmore and naming my daughter after me. I also sit for a 10 year old who calls me Amalianna, which I also like.
I use to hate having such a different name but honestly, I am just too different a person to have a normal name.
Both are pretty names!
Childhood friends called me by a nickname and when they hear people calling me Patrice (my given name),they say, “I just can’t call you that!” Whereas when people who know me as Patrice hear my nickname, they say, “I have to call you Patrice. You just LOOK like a Patrice.”
My brother has twin boys and when they were first learning to speak people would ask Nathan “Are you Nick?” (Nick is his twin). He always answered, “Mo, me Mason.” My sister had twins 9 years later. Her oldest twin is named Mason.
Hehe, that’s cute. At least Mason got used somewhere in the family.
Names are probably one of the things I intentionally try not to pay attention to in a book. Because if I do, I have to try to pronounce them, and I just sit there and can’t figure it out. Er’ril is the name in the book I’m reading at the moment. I tried not to notice it, but now for the last two chapters, I can’t pay attention to the story. I’m still trying to figure out how to pronounce the silly name. Apostrophies in names are distracting me! There are several other names in this book I can’t pronouce either. And now that I’ve noticed, I’m never going to be able to get past the names.
Maybe you could check out the author’s website and see if he/she has a list of the names and their pronunciations(sometimes with odd spellings of names authors will do this). That way you won’t be distracted and can read onward and enjoy the story.
I like unusual names. You don’t hear the name *Curran* ..so, it’s very easy to remember
Hmm… in Kay Hooper’s stories, the agent in charge is named Noah Bishop. Noah means rest or comfort and Bishop means overseer. Very pertinent to the stories (and the man) and again, not a name I’ve heard..
I like the names Rachel Caine uses in her Outcast Season books for the Djinn.. Cassiel, Gallan, Rashid… there’s more but my brain is putting up a protest.
I agree on Curran, never heard that before! On the other hand, I always have to laugh when I stumble across his last name (Lennart) because that’s the first name of a good friend of mine
. Funniest, this Lennart I know is a kick-ass guy. He’s got a black belt in two Korean martial arts and can jump/kick real awesome!
Actually, I have run across the name ‘Curran’ – as a surname. I so wish I could tell you where!
I am a huge fan of somewhat “normal” names. I totally agree with B-ster that when a name is really complicated, I have a hard time focusing on the story. Many times I give the person a nickname that is easy for me to pronounce.
One of my favorite character names is probably from Nalini’s book Slave to Sensation: Sacha. That name just sounds so warm and cuddly to me, and the character fits the name perfectly!
I love unusual names. Or names that just aren’t common.
In Korean, the meaning of a person’s name is from hanja (traditional Chinese). Because different characters can have the same sound, you can have the same name (written in Korean) mean different things (because the hanja characters are different).
My name (proun. Ji-gyung) is from the characters from/above and Seoul/capitol. Its meaning can take the literal (from Seoul), or it can mean ‘reaching for the highest’ (because the capitol was usually the greatest city in ancient times). I used to joke that my name meant ‘overachiever’.
I like names that I can pronounce (or pretend to pronounce in my head; having a handy pronunciation guide provided by the author is a nice substitute), probably because the character doesn’t seem real to me if I can’t say their name properly. It is ridiculous how many times I have tried to decide if Menolly from McCaffrey’s Pern series is pronounced MEH-nah-lee or if it’s Meh-NOLL-ee (the first sounds better, IMO, but the second makes more sense if you factor in Dolphins of Pern; I am SUCH a nerd). It’s been more than a decade and I’m still stumped. :p
My little sister’s name is Chloe, which generally translates from the Greek to young plant or young shoot (how 2 Chinese kids ended up with Greek names is a diff story). She used to hate her name because while we were growing up, the name wasn’t that common and no one who saw it on paper ever pronounced it right the first time for some reason. It was pretty traumatizing to always have the teacher mangle your name (it happened to me, too; maybe it’s where my pronunciation quirk comes from). So she used to go around telling ppl that she was SO UNFORTUNATE because her parents gave her a name that meant scrawny weed or small bush.
I can spend hours, HOURS searching for a name that fits a character. It’s so exciting when something just “clicks.”
p.s. Thanks for the AK shout-out!
My middle name Marie can be short for either Maria, “ocean”, or Mara, “bitter”. My mother meant it to be a variation of Maria, but I much prefer to tell people that my middle name is Bitter.
I pay a lot of attention to character names in stories, which doesn’t help if you read a lot. Both Ilona Andrews and Kelley Armstrong have teenaged werewolves named Derek. Their personalities are very different but I can still get tripped up the first time I see their names when I’m rereading.
I love browsing name books (or even phone books) when looking for character names. I keep a notebook and record cool or unusual names whenever I run across one. (The credits at the end of movies is another great source.)
When I write other-world fantasy, though, using normal names just doesn’t sound right so I have to invent something. I use names that have meaning as words, for most people, and family names that refer to heraldry, but the aristocrates are from a different culture and use names from their past. Those give me a headache, trying to make a name that sounds right.
The alpha male heir to clan leadership in Eileen Wilks’s Lupi novels, a wolf shape-shifter, is named Rule Turner. I always thought that was a neat name for an individual who would someday be in charge, especially since he is a leader and clearly an alpha male now.
I read a magazine comment questioning how women would get names for their children now that soap operas were no longer on TV. I think those women need to read! There are some really cool names in books these days. If I wasn’t finished having kids, I’d have a tough time choosing names for them. I give the neat names to my pets instead.
Quite often in fantasy books, authors use names that I’ve never heard before. And I’ll read the whole book through, get to the end, by which time I’ve sounded out the syllables in my head and come up with my own pronunciation which I think fits the character perfectly. Then the author ruins it all for me by putting an appendix at the end with a pronunciation guide on all his/her character names.
That’s what happened when I read the series by Alison Groggan. Loved the books, loved her main character “Maerad”, hated the pronunciation guide at the end.