A girl named Isabelle who goes by Izzy. A girl named Anastasia who goes by just Anastasia. What kind of personality would you pciture and what would you imagine them to look like?
That's very little info to go on! And I don't quite understand the second one. Do you mean she doesn't use a family name? Like Madonna/Cher/Kylie? To me, an Izzy would be late teens/early twenties, very middle-class. Travelled or planning too. Confident and high-achieving. (Any of the new graduate employees in my office!) I don't think I've ever met an Anastasia, so I would probably just picture the singer Anastastia (especially if she eschews a surname)!
To me, both of them are teenagers. Could be because I read mostly YA books though. Izzy is a bubbly blonde with a great sense of humor. She almost always has a smile on her face but she's not afraid to defend herself if someone is rude. She enjoys life and tries to make the most of each day. Some people may call her "childish" in her antics, but she's just trying to have fun. Anastasia is pretty much the opposite. She has long dark hair, parted in the center. She's a serious person, especially around strangers, but she loosens up a little around Izzy. She'll never be like Izzy, but she goes along with her strange plans and sometimes even smiles. Weirdly, I see her having a crush on a popular boy who's never given her the time of day. Her dream is to be "normal," like the popular girls, but she can't stand their immaturity and rudeness. Izzy likes her just the way she is, though, so that's enough for Anastasia.
Izzy: Fun loving, spontaneous, loyal friend. She is the girl everyone can get along with but she only has a few close friends. Anastasia: Cultured, smart, reserved. She is popular, maybe a little stuck up but she has a good heart. She may be a little mysterious.
Okay, with exception to their looks and ages, you just nailed my two main characters: Kaz & Othelia. It's rather unsettling actually (and yes, Kaz is a nickname, as her full name is Llia Kazmir) Anyway, I saw Izzy just coming out of highschool and into college, and while still volunteering her nickname to her professors, feeling a little immature for holding on to it. But she still feels that Isabelle is too formal & pretentious. She also is suffering from the new phenomena—as previously she was from small school that was fairly k-12 with the same set of students—of people mishearing her name and calling her constantly "Lizzy." She is now considering whether she ought to pull out her middle name. She's a pretty sort of girl, and in high school—while she wasn't the beauty or "belle" of her grade—she was in general considered quite desirable & attractive; unfortunately she finds she's rather average & merely on par among every twelth university girl, as more of them either were blessed to have been born with superior features or had consequentially cultivated a proficiency in correcting any deficiencies therein with an adept application of makeup. She is, in short, struggling to come to terms with her personal identity. Anastasia on the other hand has always had rather common features: nothing particularly to dislike, but definitely never anything to inspire ardent affections or a fiery passion. Her name is the prettiest thing about her. Despite this, she actually has a regal bearing, with an air of confidence or else a casual disregard for the opinions of others. She has a polarizing personality, where people either love or hate her with no one inbetween. The few companions she likes in turn she cherishes deeply, and most of her affection has an equal portion of general respect. She is in her third year of university, and she's fairly struck by the lack of superior minds and is disappointed to find a great majority of students are actually rather simple & insipid. She doesn't think she's particular smart, but she does find on average most are in fact stupid. She's disheartened that the measure of intelligence is the regurgitation of of pre-arranged information on command rather than the digesting and absorption of ideas. And that's my thoughts on the characters based on name and what they like to call themselves
Could I ask what is the purpose of searching answers for this? Do you want us members to put ourselves in the shoes of your readers? As to trying to picture the person within my brain when I hear those two names, it's easy! The difficult part is trying to put down what I picture on paper. It's way too hard to line up character and name into an individual who could possibly cross me in real life. Coming up with the physical body of that "name" is simple. Thinking of the ideal personality is confusing. I can't. Although...I can go with stereotypes as that's the easiest for anybody, I believe. And coming up adjectives is cheating, really. Isabelle: sweet, short, tan, gullible, modest-looking Anastasia: Sultry, foreign, gorgeous
I don't think you can rely on a name to develop a character. I too am confused what the point of this is. Are you having trouble picking a name or are you having trouble developing a character?
Isabelle - A girl of Latin descent, completely Americanized. Dark hair, dark eyes. No idea about personality. Anastasia - A girl of Eastern European descent. Less Americanized. Blond hair, blue eyes. Again, no specific personality jumps out from the name. That's really it. Names don't make a character for me. The characters make the name. I'll echo deadrats and jannert here - what are you hoping for with this question?
