What's in a Name?

Naming characters is one of the fun parts of writing for me, but I'm careful with it. Their given names need to match their character and personality, at least from my perspective. I collect names and keep two lists of them, one for male names and another one for females. I need to also keep the names I use in a story different enough that readers aren't likely to get them confused.

Surnames are important too. I try to make most of them common in the location the book is set in, and this is easy to research online. Once I met a reader, and she gushed about my book she'd just read while on vacation. It was set in the Appalachian Mountains, a region I know well because I grew up in that culture. As she traveled through the area, she was amazed to find businesses and mailboxes with the same last names as I'd used in the book.

I heard one author recently lament that, after writing so many books, she was having a hard time coming up with different names for her characters. So far that hasn't been a problem for me. I've written fifty-five books, and I still love naming the characters.

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