Sunday, April 04, 2010

Names, Part 3

Some final thoughts on names, naming, and the dangers therein.

[Words] When naming fictional people, we've noticed that it's easy to lift names light-fingered from anyone who's standing too close. Naming characters after people you know can be a fun diversion (Ink's taken requests before, when friends found out she was writing a book and, in one case, wanted a villain named after him), but it poses obvious hazards.

[Ink] I don't think I've ever named a major character after somebody, but a couple of times I've named a character and realized that I know somebody by that name. The FMC in my urban fantasy series is named Kate. I know so many Katherines, Catherines, Kathryns, Kaitlyns, and Katies it's not funny. I have two cousins named Katie and three good friends named some variation of Kate. I actually kinda hope they all think that they're the namesake.

I also recently realized that I named a ruthless Old West bankrobber the same name as the wonderful, cool, amazing lady who ran the youth group at my school. In my defense, Kelly was a boy's name in the 1800's. I hope she never finds out.

One time, I named a character Jordan, just on a lark. Then I realized the girl who sat behind me in Spanish class was also named Jordan. We usually didn't talk that much, but after naming the character that, we got to be friends. It was kind of weird, but cool.

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