What’s in a Name?

Now, if there’s one common complaint/critique of my series, The Passage of Hellsfire, is that some people don’t like Hellsfire’s name. I don’t quite know why, but they just don’t like it. My thirteen year-old self who came up with the name, would be very sad. There are reasons as to why I named him Hellsfire aside from thinking it’s a cool name at that time.

I had read a few fantasy books before and from what I read, the wizard to be usually had a simple name but eventually were given/earned a name. As cliched as Catalyst is, I didn’t want to go this route and do something different. In fact, I wanted to reverse it. I wanted the wizard name to be given first because that’s who and what he is. It’s really as simple as that.

Now, I did come up with perfectly good story reasons as for Hellsfire’s name that I’ve revealed bit by bit in the two books I’ve released so far, and more detailed explanations will be given as the series progresses. Without giving too much away, his name basically has to deal with his powers and his destiny.

Whatever your original reasons for choosing a name for a main protagonist, I believe you should like it. Whether you’re going for something subtle or overt, as a metaphor or to stand for something, it’s a name that you’re going to have to live with way more than your readers.

So what’s in a name? A lot.

Marc Johnson