SMB asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

I have noticed a good number of similar names across your various books: multiple Dubauers/Dubro, Nikki/Nikys, Illvin/Ilyan, etc. Are any of these an hommage to a particular person, just personal preferences for certain syllable combinations, or merely coincidences across so many richly peopled books? Many thanks for so many hours of happy (re)reading over the years.

Lois McMaster Bujold Partly coincidence, partly no doubt combinations that my brain, for whatever reasons, finds euphonious, and partly that readerly eyes naturally notice similarities but gloss over the more common differences that blend into the general background noise.

Also, one does run out of pronounceable names that are not-our-world after a while -- quite a short while, now we have Google putting all the real world's languages at everyone's fingertips.

(I get the same effect with age differences across romantic relationships; certain ones jump out at people who have sensitivities about them, making them feel more common to them than an actual statistical survey of my characters would support.)

Ta, L.

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