Rei's real name

In a previous post, I asked the question: Are these stories real? Well, here is another fact that just snapped in place.

When I make up names for people, I usually have a purpose. For example, in the current version of Rome's Revolution, I introduced you to Captain Keller. His name was supposed to remind you of a killer. And the colonel in charge of Darwin was Colonel Slayton. Again, the word slay is embedded in his name.

I named the Vuduri after constellations. Pegus, Ursay, Canus, Signola were all patterned after the stars. I made the Deucadons twisted forms of regular names like Bukky, Steben, Triden and Melloy.

But what about Rome and Rei? Rome was always Rome, ever since I can remember. I guess now that I have a rule, you could say that Rome was named after the constellation Romulus. She used to have a last name, Sevenate (7-8, get it?), but after I saw Star Trek Voyager with 7 of 9 (which came 24 years after I wrote the original VIRUS 5 and invented the name), I dropped her last name and now no Vuduri have last names.

Rei was named after my father, Ray. But most people did not know that. A lot of people didn't even know how to pronounce Rei's name (pronounced Ray, not Rye). When I got to Rome's Evolution and I wanted to teach Rome about lying and beating lie detectors, I had to come up with his full name. It is Reinard which means Brave Counsel.

Once I came up with it, I was able to fold it into the Intermezzo about Rei's last day on Earth. I enjoyed writing that little story. I finally got to meet Rei's dad, Edward, who was named after my grandfather.

But...this is the point. It took me 40 years to learn Rei's full name. So where did it come from in the first place?