Hi, I'm going to be writing a story about a quiet girl who is overshadowed by her friendly, popular twin sister. The main character has straight blonde hair and blue eyes, and she is very kind and affectionate. Do you think it would sound too obvious to name her Charity? Or should I go with my second choice name, Emmaline? (Her twin sister is Jamie-Anne and she has a little sister named Charlotte). Thanks!
I personally dislike obvious names. I'd be more likely to cast Charity as a selfish manipulative b--ch whom everyone secretly despises but no one wants to stand up to. But that would be nearly as obvious, so I'd probably end up tossing the name altogether.
Names are always hard. There're so many of them yet never enough. My co-author and I have some common names and other less-common or unusual names. Perfect example would be our main characters [twins like yours, haha] April and July. We actually make fun of July's name right in the opening chapter. We were more careful picking names with main characters because we wanted them to have meaning behind them in some way or another. I agree with Cogito that Charity would be too obvious. -rumages for novel's name book- Ah, here we are. Let's see... I'll give you a few examples of names and why we chose them- hopefully you can get some ideas on how to choose for your own character! =) Iris- this name has to do with her power. Can't say more than that though, sorry! Revera- this is a mix of letters from a latin word meaning "truth" - it has to do with the extremist group of characters in our story who believe they do what they do for the "truth" - that prob makes no sense to you but ah well! haha Rastaban- has to do with his group's [also the extremist group] weapon in relation to the dragon constellation (dragons usually breathe fire- which is how it connects to his weapon mwahahh. Rastaban is one of the stars) So I love the fact that you want her name to have meaning! Maybe you could rearrange the letters in Charity to make a unique name? Or find a synonym for charity and rearrange those letters. Then again it depends on the genre of your story as well. Ours is fantasy so unique names fit much better than say a biography. Well that was extremely long-winded but I have a habit of doing that -shrug- Hope it helped at least a little! - Jen
Thanks! I also recently signed up for another writing website and got the suggestion to name the characters I really like with names I'd give my children and characters I dislike names I wouldn't want my kids to have. So, I'm going with Emmaline, and naming her bully since elementry school the name Jade. Thanks again!
