Character Names: My Thoughts

The naming of characters in books, to me, is a precious thing. When done well, we can just say the first name of the character or even a couple's name (Mac and Barrons, Cat and Bones, Kate and Curran, Mercy and Adam), and anyone that has read those books will know exactly who we are talking about.

What's in a name?

Some monikers can give the reader a feel for the character. It shouldn't be too over the top though or I assume that I'm not supposed to feel any other way about them. When you've got a Cruella De Ville in your story, you just know this person is evil. The unfortunate last name of Gump for Forrrest is so close to 'gimp', that it was hard to imagine this would be an intelligent character. When you've got a character named Cain that turns bad, do you really think the reader is surprised? What about the name Vlad for a vampire, or Sin for a demon? Those are becoming so trite. Conversely, I enjoyed the use of The White Witch for the evil queen in Chronicles of Narnia. White is so often associated with good, that I fancy the twist.

Epic characters deserve to have names that will always be applied only to them. Think Dumbledore, Gandalf, and Aslan will ever be anything else to me as a reader? Those will remain solely their titles forever as far as I'm concerned.

 

Pet Peeves

I am probably going to scream if I see another derivative of Kathryn as a leading heroine name. Scratch that, as any character name.

We have Kate from The Kate Daniels Series, Cat from The Night Huntress Series, Katy from The Lux Series, Kat from The White Rabbit Chronicles, and even Katniss from Hunger Games. Two of these ladies have the nickname of "Kitten"! I'm sure you know of more with this name.

What I've found is that I do love these ladies. The name is generally applied to those sarcastic, sassy, independent, hard to tame, and bold women. From here on out though, I feel it will be hard for me to constrain my eye-roll at another character with this name.

I know Hunter, Archer, Lucas, and Cole are very often used for boy's names as well. Lucy, Mary, and Alice I've been seeing a lot for those damsels in distress, or girl-next-doors.

I am also irked when I come across unpronounceable names. It breaks up the flow so much when I'm having to pause every two seconds to work my mind around how I should say the name. By about the fourth time, I give up and they are forever called by the initial of their name instead.

I am against those names that are meant for the opposite gender too. I WILL have the gender that is appropriate for the name in my head the whole time I'm reading. It's terrible to read reviews for these books as well, as I get completely lost while trying to understand what they've enjoyed while reading since I can't work out who the characters are and match them with the 'he' and 'she' pronouns.

How do you feel? Do you care about character names?
Which names in fiction do you feel are most overused? 
Which ones work the best?