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Character Names in Books
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In Cold Mountain the two main characters have my father's first name for the surname and his mother's maiden name as the first name (or what he is always called by). This drew me into the book and I loved it.
I recently encountered a strange coincidence, myself. I read two books back to back. The first book was titled August Blue. The next book, West with Giraffes, had a major character nicknamed "Augusta Red".Isn't that crazy!
Miller's Valley by Anna Quindlen did that to me and it was downright eerie because Anna is also an alumnae of Barnard College. A class or two ahead of me, and we have met at events many times though I have never shared my farm or family background with her. Never came up.In the book the protagonist grew up on a farm, as I did, set in same era, and she had a much older brother, exactly 11 years older, whose name was Eddie though he shortened it to Ed when he went away to colleger. My brother is 11 years older, called Eddie until he went to college and shortened it to Ed. Both book Ed and my Ed never returned home to the farm ...
It was eerie! Fortunately the story diverged from my life significantly eventually.
Next time I see Anna, we have to have a chat.
~*Kim*~ wrote: "I'm sure we've all read books that have character names of someone we know IRL. Well, I have run across a quite, um....interesting set of names. So my ex-husband's name is Christopher. My current ..."
Ok, I, too, though that was pretty funny!
I am trying to think of an example of this for me. The only thing I can think of is coming across the name "Cricket" as an American name for a female in my general peer group. I know sometimes novels pick unusual names for characters so that they are memorable, but this seemed extreme. And it keeps coming up! This has happened across at least two or three books (by different authors) at this point, but is something I've never heard of in real life. Are there really a lot of girls out there named Cricket and I'm just not in the region where they live?? LOL. It struck me funny the first time, but now it seems like I'm haunted by Crickets, LOL.
Not a book, but a street name: In my early 30's my long time boy friend and I separated. I needed to make major changes and moving them was one of. I moved to "Adams Court", within a year I met my husband Adam 🥰
@ LibraryCinGlad I wasn't the only one. LOL!
When I was growing up ( through several moves across the country) I never met anyone with my last name. Now that name is popping up as a popular first name, mostly for girls, and there's popular series with the character's name in each title. There's also a mystery author who uses my father's full name as his pen name. It's actually not an uncommon Scot/Irish family name. I probably have a lot of relations that I've never met.
I've never come across either my married or maiden names in fiction--they just aren't common enough. I did read a novel once with a Karin in it and it was very strange to do so (but not to read about a Karen).I've read books with names of people I know plenty of times, but it's only when it's an unusual name, especially an ex-boyfriend. While reading a volume of Icelandic sagas I came across only one Tor (an ex beau who'd come from Norway as a child) but many names that used that in combination. Spelled Tor, not Thor. It was especially amusing if that person were tall and very strong, since this boyfriend--we were all of 20--was all muscle and had no extra weight, but was a large man.
Play Book Tag
Books mentioned in this topic
Miller's Valley (other topics)August Blue (other topics)
West With Giraffes (other topics)
Cold Mountain (other topics)
So my ex-husband's name is Christopher. My current boyfriend's name is Frankie. The book I'm currently reading has a Christopher and a Frankie. And they are a gay couple (which I absolutely have no problem with). For some reason, that just struck me as hilarious. What are the odds of that???