What’s In a Name? And How Do You Choose One?

/ Marcia

Good Morning, Folks! Today, I’m over at Story Empire with a post about choosing character names. Hope you’ll stop by to check out the post, and will enjoy it enough to pass it along far and wide. Thanks so much! 🙂 ❤

Story Empire

Happy Moon’s Day, Everybody! Marcia here, with some thoughts about names. Shakespeare’s words above might be true for roses, but are they always true for the characters in our books? I’m not so sure. Certain names can trigger specific memories and images for each of us, for sure, but not always in ways that are what we want readers to picture when we tell our stories.

For instance, what would you choose to name a gorgeous, well-built Adonis of a hero like this one? Gomer? Probably not, unless you were deliberately being humorous or ironic.

And what about your nerdy little computer geek who saves the world? He might turn out to be a hero, but I’m guessing a name like Goliath would be a poor choice, for the same reason.

It’s not that names always have to point to what your hero/heroine looks like, or even what he or…

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5 thoughts on “What’s In a Name? And How Do You Choose One?”

  1. Since I write poetry and personal essays, I don’t have to worry about names. But I enjoyed naming my children and our pets over the years. I think that we grow into our name – whatever it is – our name represents us and it carries a message. When I was naming our children, I carefully research the name meanings and origins. I think that each of them grew into that name – I do love Shakespeare’s quote but my favorite one is by Gertrude Stein…”A rose, is a rose, is a rose.” A name can be a GIFT or a curse –

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    • Well said, Lynda! And I haven’t heard Gertrude quoted in a long, long time. I always liked that line. I like the careful thought you put into your children’s names, too. Thanks for sharing that! And I’m glad you enjoyed this post, too. 🙂 Always nice to have you drop by! ❤

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