Giving Up on Character Names

No, I’m not going to start numbering the people in my books, but I am hereby abandoning my obsessive need to give each character a brand new, never before used, name. A couple of years ago, I asked my assistant to go through my books (seventeen at the time) and list all the first names and surnames of my characters as well as all the place names I’d made up. I had her put an asterisk next to the names belonging to main characters so I wouldn’t reuse them — or at least not use them in books that came out right after one another. This was easy when I had one book a year, but now that my older books are being reissued, I surrender! I promise there will never be another Annie or CeeCee, but every other name is fair game!

Want to help? There’s a newborn baby in my work-in-progress and I haven’t named her yet. She’s a little colicky and her mom, Alissa, is a frustrated seventeen-year-old. Any ideas for the little one?