What’s In A Name?

This week we have two book birthdays–one for Edith Maxwell, one for Maddie Day. As we prepare to celebrate these books, one has to wonder, how do we all come up with the names of our characters? Is there a rhythm or reason? For multi-series writers, do you ever think about doing crossovers between series? Or wish a character could show up in more than one series?

Edith: I’ll jump in here about the crossover. Tomorrow I have a post up on Dru’s Book Musings, where characters talk in their own voices. Dru Ann asked if Robbie Jordan (Country Store Mysteries) and Cam Flaherty (Local Foods Mysteries) could meet. I gave it a little thought, and yeah, they can! Cam heads to Indiana to visit her parents, who are professors

there, and they all go out to breakfast at Pans ‘N Pancakes, Robbie’s country store restaurant. It was a fun scene to write. For my historical series, I like to prowl cemeteries and look for names from the eighteen hundreds. And then there’s the . I found Orpha and Jotham in there.

Barb: Readers of mysteries often complain that they can’t keep the characters straight. The most important way to avoid confusion is to draw each character clearly and memorably and give him or her a distinct voice. I also like to hedge my bets by giving my characters memorable and distinct names. So recently I have used Imogen and Tallulah and Floradale. I also like alliterative first-last name combinations, like Cuthie Cuthbertson and Paolo Paolini.

Liz: I love trying to think up unique names – despite the fact that I always end up giving my characters names beginning with the same letter. I’m a huge fan of cemeteries too, especially when I’m trying to think of interesting last names. But mostly I try to give my characters names that fit them well as the people I see walking around in my mind.

Jessie: Very often the names of characters just come to me as though I have been introduced to them at a party. They simply pop, fully formed into my mind. One thing I do as soon as I know a character name is that I run a Google search on it to see if it popped easily into my head because it belongs to someone newsworthy and I have not made the connection.

Filed under: Group posts