Naming things is hard, y’all. When I first started writing, I borrowed names from family members. My family is rather large so there were lots of great names to choose from; a few of my main characters were named after cousins: Pippa, Sophie, Anna, Ethan. I made sure the characters were as different as possible in physical description and personality to the real-life person they were named for, to make sure my relatives understood just because it was their name, it did not mean that character was based on them. Family dinners can get really awkward when you name a character after one of your uncles and then make that character unlikable. But on the flip side, there could be the sweet revenge of immortalizing someone as the bad guy... like maybe a teacher that you felt was unjustly harsh. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Now, I look outside of my family tree and go straight to baby name websites. Those searches are usually successful but always come with the downside of targeted ads for diapers and formula that never seem to end. Sometimes I know I want a name to start with a certain letter so I Google things like: cool name for a girl that starts with R. I’ll scroll through Facebook and Twitter on the lookout for names that stand out, especially if the profile picture somehow matches the mental image I have for that character.
I spend days and days trying to find the absolute right name for a character before I write the first word about them, because a character’s name is one of the most important things about them. For me, it’s the first building block in deciding who they are and what kind of trouble they are going to find themselves in. It's easy to overthink it, though, because while a name may sound great to you, it may have the opposite effect on someone else. For some readers, it can be a turnoff if a character’s name reminds you of someone you don’t particularly care for. Like, if there was a boy in third grade who was not very nice to you and you still remember it years and years later, there’s a chance those feelings about him will unjustly bleed over to the character. And yeah, Danny, I’m talking about you.
It's not just characters that are hard to name. My first two YA books were set in the very real town of Natchitoches, Louisiana. Partly because it’s a really cute small town (if you’ve seen Steel Magnolias, you’re agreeing with me) and partly because I knew it was one of those names where the pronunciation would stump readers from outside of Louisiana. But when I was writing my third YA thriller, THIS IS OUR STORY, I was hesitant to set it somewhere real. That book is set in another small town in Louisiana and it deals with the potential corruption in the local District Attorney’s office after a boy is found dead. I wasn’t as comfortable setting it in a real place since I make the town look bad so I decided to create a fictional town instead. But then I found out naming a town is harder than naming a character! Do I just make up a name out of thin air? Do I name it after a person who was historically relevant? Should I reference a lake or a mountain or some other physical feature of the area? I looked up the most common US town name once and found out it is Washington, after the first president, with Madison and Franklin not far behind. Not surprising a lot of towns are named after the Founding Fathers because naming a town is hard!
You would think after six books I would have learned my lesson and given myself less to name, but apparently not! My adult thriller debut, FIRST LIE WINS, features a con artist and there are flashbacks to some of her previous jobs so not only did I have to name her once, I had to come up with half a dozen aliases for her. There’s also another fictional town, a handful of fake businesses and even a mediocre rock band that had to be called something. But it’s worth all the trouble to get it right. I hope you get a chance to pick up one of my books and forgive me if one of the names I chose reminds you of your childhood nemesis.
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Ashley Elston worked for many years as a wedding photographer before turning her hand to writing. She lives in Louisiana with her husband and three sons. Elston has written six young adult novels; First Lie Wins is her adult debut. First Lie Wins is the January Reese's Book Club pick. (Congrats-Ashley!)
