Often, writers are asked where they come up with names for the characters in their books. I don’t know if other authors are the same, but for me, the wrong name on a character can make it hard to write them. I would imagine a misconception for many readers is that authors use names they love. For me, at least, that’s not always true. I use the name that fits…and sometimes finding that name can be happenstance.
For instance, for my book SOMETHING ABOUT HER, my heroine’s name is Blythe. For me, finding this name was a trial and error and involved many hours of doing searches in baby name books and websites. I knew that it had to be unique, and I knew the “feeling” I wanted from it. When I remembered the name Blythe from a book I used to love, I knew it was the perfect fit. It was perfect for my character and for me, it was a silent nod to an author I admired and loved.
The same was true for the heroine in my second historical — Her name is Ariadne Whitney (she’s called Aria for short.) Her father is a antiquarian, so I knew that her name needed to be specific to his passions, to his world. Ariadne is a name from mythology:
ARIADNE was the immortal wife of the wine-god Dionysos. There were several versions of her story. In one, Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of Krete, assisted Theseus in his quest to slay the Minotaur, and then fled with him aboard his ship. However, when they landed on the island of Naxos, Theseus abandoned her as she was sleeping. It was here that the god Dionysos discovered her and made her his wife. Some say that she was later slain by Artemis, or else granted immortality. In another account, Ariadne’s bridal with Dionysos occurred several generations before, when the god was still wandering the earth introducing his cult. But when he rode into battle against the Argives with his band of sea women, she was slain or turned to stone by King Perseus. The god then descended to the underworld through Lerna to bring her back, before ascending to Olympos. Theoi.com
FromPantheon.org, we add: Concluding, we can say that Ariadne represented a tragic heroine figure in all the different versions of her myth. Therefore we can also understand that she was suffering from a terrible dilemma, namely between her wish for happiness and the obligation to obey to a divine command. Due to this internal fight, she felt a great sorrow and suffered death in so many different ways.
I’ll leave it up to my readers to decide if there is any correlation from the mythical Ariadne to my character. While their stories are very different, I would say that my Ariadne (Aria) faces tragedies of her own… And her last name? Once again, a nod to another character from one of my all time favorite historical romance books. (For all you historical romance readers, any guesses on which one?)
Other names I’ve chosen have been first or last names of people I’ve known in my past… and yes, I admit a few exes or former crushes ended up as shall we say, “interesting” characters in my stories.. 😉 Some character names come easy, some go through renditions of changes. But above all, the name has to be right.
So for other writers, how do you choose your names?