How I Pick the Names of My Characters

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By Maria Grazia Swan

No doubt it’s a fun task for a native author. By native I mean US born. I was born in Italy. I lived in five countries before settling in the United States, and I find American names very confusing. The last thing I want to do as an author is to have my readers confused by my characters’ names. They’ll have plenty of chances to get confused without worrying about names.

Before you judge me and think I’m a whiner, let me provide an example or two.

Take Pat for example. Is it short for Patricia or Patrick? How can you tell? Then there are Toni and Tony. Yes, for a native that’s simple. For me, it is a little more difficult.

After a friend explained that the letter i works for the female version and “y” for the male as a nickname for Anthony, I feel like I have Anthony under control.

But what about Miki, Mickey, or Micky? Where did the “y” come from in this case? What about Sam? And Blair, Morgan, Jaime, Marion, and dare I ask? Paris. Are these boy’s or girl’s names?

Then you have last names that are really first names. How confusing is that? There’s Lynn David, Andrew Lawrence, April Rose, Kim Lindsay, Tom Arnold, Ricky Martin, Tina Louise, Marc Anthony, Marc Grace, Darryl Hannah, Dave Barry. I bet you could add a dozen more to this list.

Okay, I think I made my case, so that’s why I keep my names simple, I try to pick the ones easy to pronounce both in English and Italian, like Mina or Margo.

Anyway, the best way for you to find out if I’m speaking the truth is to read my books. Here is Bosom Bodies, Mina’s second adventure. The eBook will be free for Kindle on January 3rd, 4th and 5th. Go ahead, what have you got to lose? And let me know what you think about the names and a few more choice Italian words. See? You get to practice Italian…for free.

Bosom Bodies is FREE at Amazon from January 3–5, 2014.

 

About the Author

Maria Grazia Swan has written short stories for anthologies, articles for high profile magazines and numerous blogs tackling love and life. She engaged her editorial and nonfiction skills for Boomer Babes: Tales of Love and Lust in the Later Years. You can find her at mariagraziaswan.com, on Facebook and on Twitter.

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