What's In A Name?
I read an interesting statistic recently. The most popular first name in the world is Mohammed. The most common last name is Wong. And yet one's chances of meeting Mohammed Wong are very slim.
Whenever I am asked advice about creating characters, one point I always emphasize is, "Take care in choosing a name." This is because a name will tell the reader a lot about that character, probably more than you might think. If, for instance, I name a character Tiffany or Bambi, you can be certain she isn't out of a Jane Austen book. And she most likely is also not over sixty years of age. I would wager, too, that she isn't Jewish, Middle Eastern or African American.
Names not only reflect the historical era in which you are writing, or the part of the world where you are setting your story, names also reflect nationality (we can safely assume that Fifi is French), race (LaToya is surely black), religion (Maria will most likely be Catholic), age (Gertrude or Amber, which is younger?), and even, believe it or not, a character's level of education (is Edna Barnstable a cheerleader or a history professor?), and whether your character is weak or strong (do you name your manly hero Wilfred or Zane?). Scarlett was not Margaret Mitchell's first choice for the name of her famous heroine in Gone With the Wind. It was a wise editor who suggested she change Pansy (Mitchell's original name for Scarlett) to something else, something stronger and more romantic. And the rest, as they say, is history. (Imagine, for example, if Mitchell had chosen to name the hero Barney instead of Rhett, and you get my drift.)
Also, make the names pronounceable. Readers like to discuss books and don't want to stumble over names. For my novel Daughter of the Sun, I was forced by history to select names that are unfamiliar to the modern ear. When I meet with reading groups, I am always asked, "How do you pronounce Hoshi'tiwa?" And for my newest book, Woman Of A Thousand Secrets, to be published in a few months by St. Martin's Press, I was particularly challenged since most of my characters are Mayans and Aztecs, and those are some pretty difficult names for the modern tongue.
But now I am back writing about English people in the nineteenth century, in Black Opal, and as my dear friend, Sharon (whom some of you know), said, "Aren't you glad to be writing about Johns and Marys again?"
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