All of my siblings and me have traditional names. For example: my name is Emily. (My last name is a completely different story. I actually didn’t know about Yonkers, NY until I married my husband.) When I was younger I didn’t necessarily like my name. There were always plenty of Emilys (or is that Emilies) to go around. Now that I am older I’ve grown to appreciate the tradition. No one ever wonders how to spell it or pronounce it. There also seem to be fewer Emilys running around then I remember. Then again I associate with fewer people now that I am out of school. My father likes calling people by their full names. Ben is always Benjamin. Nate is always Nathan. Jen is always Jennifer. (Sometimes he does it even when the person’s name isn’t actually any longer.)
With the future forever looming in the distance and the knowledge that eventually I will have children, names are always on my mind. Since I’m an author I worry about naming characters, having the novel become a huge success, and my child having the same name as the hero or villain. What will people think then? Or what if I name a child and the child hates the name? Maybe I’m just worrying too much but to be on the safe side I will refrain from using my favorite names on characters.
The other problem I have is overusing names in my stories. I realized this was a problem when in three different stories I had characters named Fae, Faye and Fey. I now use a program that helps me keep track of exactly which names I have used. My other philosophy is I can’t have main characters whose names start with the same letter, unless there is a darn good reason. As a kid I got so confused with Sauron and Saruman yet I had a story with three main characters whose names were Cael, Chaun, and Chay. That was fixed quickly.
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