How intuititive are readers?

[James]

I'm three quarters of the way through reworking Whitedown II and realise I have a dog and a cow with the same names. I also have two women called Linda.
All have been named carefully as integral to the plot. But on another, now defunct, site I was once criticised by another as they found it confusing. Now on page 155 of 320 I find I refer to them in successive paragraphs.
My own view is that life is like that. But what do the rest of you think?

[Andy]

Personally I would add another Linda just to confound people, and then have them all talk to each other.
Not a problem for me, names are just names, the characters should stand on their merits anyway.

[Will]

Some readers are hyper intelligent and will be able to keep track of multiple Linda's. Some are not so bright and will need their hands held. And everything in between.

You are trying to sell books to all of 'em. So the general advice on names is to keep them as distinct as they possibly can be. You have almost nothing to gain by having two or more Linda's and potentially quite a bit to lose.

I have even seen recommendations that you shouldn't have character names that look similar, including beginning with the same letter.

So I would change one Linda to Alice (or some such). You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

And when you get really good at this game, you give your characters names that have a meaning or some other way of remembering them. JuliET was a CapulET. RomEO was a MontagUE. Tybalt was the Prince of Cats, after a story of Reynard the Fox (which the audience would have known).

Or if you fancy something a little more up to date ... Luke is saintly, the Skywalkers dream about adventure, Darth is dark, Sidious is evil and Yoda is buddha-like.

Hold the reader's hand. Some of your readers won't need it or notice it. Some will. Sell books to all of 'em.

[James]

Thanks Gents.

[Rob]

I'd be inclined to agree with Will, but I do wonder what you meant when you said 'All have been named carefully as integral to the plot.' Is that something you could get around? Using distinct names does strike me as the better way to go.

If not, could you alter one of them to give the clearer distinction some readers will doubtless need? A double-barreled name, perhaps, like Lynda-May, or something phonetically similar, like Lucinda? Difficult to know what to suggest without yet having read it...

[Belinda]

Linda and Lynda?