A Week of Tips and Tricks to Writing - #6 Character Names

I've blogged before about how I choose names for my characters. Here's another one.

Watch a movie. Or pull out a DVD you own. Go to the rolling credits.

Voila!

Has Television or the Movies Ruined You for a Particular Character's Name?

When our sons were born, the hardest thing my husband and I had to do was to name them. For him, the name couldn't be of someone he knew and didn't care for. For me, it couldn't be a student I'd taught who had given me a year of misbehaving misery.

As a writer, I'm back to square one again. What do I name my hero and heroine? Unfortunately, some names I particularly enjoy are the names of certain characters on television shows or movies, and these characters are total jerks or beyotches. No way do I want to give the two most important people in my book a moniker that might remind the reader of someone they detest, either fiction or non-fiction.

Yeah, I know the chances of not having that happen are pretty minuscule. But am I the only one who feels this way?

I Try to Keep It Pronounceable

I was perusing the blurbs of some of the new sci-fi romances over on Amazon, and I discovered one odd fact. In many cases, if the male is the one who's from another planet/galaxy, his name is unpronounceable.  More often than not, it also has apostrophes in it. Examples: K'norr,  Gra'dish en Me'vahu, Myr

Now, I will admit that I've tried to keep my characters' names from becoming too tongue-tangling. In several cases, I resolved that issue by giving them a "similar" name. In other words, I took a familiar word, then changed one or two letters. (Ex: Ryan - Rion). But in most instances, I've made the attempt to keep the monikers one syllable in length.

However, there have been a time or two when someone's asked me to help with the pronunciation of a name. The one most frequently asked? AEQUANA. The A and E are combined Greek-style, making my mermaid heroine's name either "Ee-quana" or "Eh-quana". Either way is fine. And either way, it doesn't make any difference as long as a reader wants to read one of my books.