What's In A Name?

Sometimes when we choose a name for one of our fictional  characters, there are unintended consequences.

Case in point: when I developed the Sissy Jupiter outlines for my new series, her name was loosely based on "Sissy Jupe", a character from Charles Dickens' "Hard Times". The writing group was thinking of where story ideas came from and one exercise we played around with was to take an old story or tv show and add "in space" after it.

Gilligan's Island... in space... a tour of some interesting planets leads the USS Minnow (for example) into an ion storm and they get stranded on an uncharted planet.

Wagon's West... in space... which became Star Trek.

You get the idea.

So I thought, hm, Hard Times ... in space, and that's where Sissy Jupiter came from for my mid-20s female protagonist. So far so good.

But when I discussed my cover and my manuscript with beta readers and others, it became clear that the name "Sissy" signalled a YA story, and that's not the audience I was writing for.

So Sissy is retired. I may resurrect that name for a future YA story, but for now, the name doesn't work.

Allow me to introduce to you... Piper Madison.