. . . Who knew?
I just realized something completely random and a little odd. Counting the heroine of the novel on which I’m currently working (14,000 words in!), I’ve written four female characters who are the protagonists and viewpoint characters of their respective novels. And, by coincidence, each of their names contains both the letter A and the letter I.
It’s not as if their names are similar. Seriah was the POV character of my first novel, Guardian to the Prince; Allison is the heroine of Dragons Over London; Claire stars in The Dogwatchers; and my current work centers on a girl named Sanji.
Allison lives in the modern-day USA. While all the others inhabit the same fantasy world, they’re not citizens of the same country. Indeed, Sanji lives on a different continent from the other two.
A quick rundown of my secondary and supporting female characters seems to indicate that only a third to half of them have this letter combo in their names. (Still seems like kind of a lot to me.) I’ve only written two male protagonists/POV characters in my novels, so I can’t really analyze them. They do not, however, follow the A-and-I pattern.
It’s a silly observation, I know. I think it’s kind of neat, though, considering that it was entirely unintentional and that the names are so different. The A and I don’t sound the same in any two of them!
The funny thing is that, while this has been totally coincidental so far, my having noticed it means that, on some level, whether I do it again will probably be a conscious choice. Sure, I might forget, or I might be drawn to a particular name so strongly that I would have chosen it regardless, but chances are I won’t be able to claim again that I didn’t even think about it.
Anything like this ever happen to any of you guys?
September 15, 2010 at 12:50 am
Let’s see:
Findur (high school fan fiction novel of doom)
Jack
Beatrice
Naphati / Mira (unfinished novel of doom)
Diarmuid
Nope, no secret patterns!
September 15, 2010 at 1:46 am
I have some difficulty coming up with names. For some reason I’m repeatedly drawn to certain letters (A, E, I, K, L, N, R, S, T, and Y) and strongly dislike others (mostly B, C, F, G, and O), so every new character name starts as a combination of letters from the first list, and I have to tweak and tinker until it’s sufficiently original. (I once realized halfway through revising a scene that I’d mixed up two of my characters. No joke.) On the other hand, when I’m naming an antagonist, I’ll sometimes draw consciously from the second list.
September 16, 2010 at 3:52 am
See, now I’m just picturing you having an antagonist named Fogoboo. 😛 Not sure why that was what jumped into my head looking at those letters.
September 16, 2010 at 3:55 am
Would have been sweet of them.
Of course, with real people, there’s the factor of whether they like the name. That’s pretty much the most important factor when you name a kid (although “something that kids won’t throw in their face every day on the playground” is up there, too).
For instance, even though I love Fred as a character, I’ve never liked that name. I’m pretty sure nothing could convince me to name a kid of mine Fred.