Has anyone ever googled their MC's full name? I just did and it turns out my main character Will has a hidden profession other than that of a blacksmith - turns out he's a famous plastic surgeon hahaha Anyone else with interesting discoveries?
Oh my gosh! I had never googled my MC's name before but I just did, after seeing this thread and it turns out I have named my MC the exact same as the main character in 'Our Fault is in Our Stars' by John Green. I have never read that book, only hearing the name once or twice, but that is a total coincidence! Wow. Weird. Should I change my MC's name to avoid looking like I've copied it?
I used to when I was younger. I was paranoid about finding a totally unique name - but I stopped caring about that approx five years ago. The MC of a novel I finished recently shared his name with a presenter on Sky News. For the sake of this thread I looked up the main characters in the short story I began writing yesterday: The MMC -- an assassin who has been frozen in ice for ninety years -- apparently has an uncommon name. A Google search brought up two people on Facebook and then my own blog. Searching the FMC's name brought up a lot of matches. Strangely, I expected more matches for the MMC. He has a common forename.
I google all my character's names just to make sure there isn't someone of any renown or notoriety with that name that I didn't know about or forgot about. I don't recall anything that was particularly striking, though.
Nope, there's only a Conan O'Brien...kinda makes me wish I gave him a more common name lol Although one of my characters has the same exact name (first and surname name) as a Canadian actor...cool, I guess.
Hazel Grace Lancaster? Augustus Waters? Lidewij Vliegenthart? Those are some odd names. Peter Van Houten sounds vaguely familiar, probably because Leslie is so well known.
I called one of my characters John Farrell - love that name. Then one day I'm watching the old movie Gilda ( great movie btw ) and Glenn Ford's name is Johnny Farrell. arrgh! I'm keeping it though, maybe someone will think it's a homage like Tarentino with his Mr. Red, Mr. Blue etc. from The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
Lol Gracia Bee - no I don't think you should change the name of your character. It's perfectly ok as long as it's not a name like Luke Skywalker or David Beckham. I was searching purely for curiosity's sake - since I made up my MC's surname, it was just amusing to find that it's a real surname after all! I don't care so much about whether my names are unique. But then again, I wonder if anyone here has got into some amusing blunders thanks to their character sharing the same name as someone else? Once I named a stretch of woods "Ring Wood" in my fantasy novel and I don't think I'd ever forget my friend's reaction when she read it. She exclaimed, "I live there!"
Well, that was weird. My main character's name doesn't appear on Google, but his romantic interest has apparently just been kidnapped!
I seem to find my FMC only from our blog or a mention on this forum, so that at least is a unique name! My MMC's name is more common, there are plenty of Jonathan Reagans, but he goes by a nickname throughout the novel so no matter. My other MMC, Oliver Hendricks, plays football in Belize irl, but he doesn't seem to be too famous...
Yeah, I just did this now. My MC is apparently a professional Canadian Ice Hockey player. I may try this for some of my other characters
Well Abraham Cooper is apparently "an English animal and battle painter." That's pretty cool, actually.
I just googled one of my characters - Dennis Rodman - apparently he's quite famous in America... oh, and North Korea...
Never thought about searching my MC on google. Sounds interesting after reading everyone elses discoveries.
Never Googled any character names but they keep jumping in front of me anyway. Created a main character in a thriller and a couple of years later I see a semi driving down the freeway with the guy's last name emblazoned across the side. Another character from a different book showed up when a new construction company moved into town. It's happened so often that I now actually look for names from my manuscripts after I have completed them. I fully expect to have a name pop up somewhere. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to Google.
There's no-one famous for my protagonist, and nothing for his brother. Amrita Kaur has about three billion hits, though...
About 6 months after naming my MC I found out that I WORK with someone by that name! He's in another group on another floor (we're a big company) - but I also really DON'T like him. And here I thought I had made up the name. I literally spent weeks picking out the right first name and then a last name based on my MC's nationality. LOL! I ended up changing his last name to my grandmother's maiden name. Similar feel, but not the guy I work with anymore.
But blacksmiths forge works-of-art lasting hundred of years while plastic surgeons can only come close to that time frame with a Joan Rivers and she's no work-of-art. Two... One...The name Jodie googles only girls but in the 19th century it was a popular boy's name. (Got lucky) Two...Your aviator moons me ~ 30 times/minute.
One of the main antagonist in my universe is a very militaristic and hostile alien race known as the Skrovans. Now, the Skrovans are bad. When they invaded earth in 2044, they killed over a billion people before they were pushed back. Before that they caused a giant infection with a bioweapon creating creatures inspired by Dead Space, which killed over 4 billion people. They're evil as hell. Well, one day, I decided to google their name. It turns out that there's an actor named Steven Skrovan. Never heard of him before. I don't watch many movies or TV shows. Damn. I decided to keep it, as an accidental reference. Also, there's another alien race who I used to call the Xel'naga. Never played Starcraft before, either. Well, I was interested in it's backstory, so I looked it up and....damn. Now they're the Xi'Crati.
I kinda did, but it was mostly to come up with a last name for him. The last name I ended up with for him is some kind of menswear thingy. Can’t find anything for his full name though. I know I won’t find anything for my second MC cause his name is just Wolf in the language of the dragons
