What’s In A Name

I have been told by my beta readers that all my characters have odd names. And while I think that’s true of most, I do have to agree that these characters name are quite odd (and I am sure my love of the letter ‘y’ doesn’t help much). But here is my deep dark secret, ok so it’s not that dark – and you can read about it in the about me section, so I guess it’s not that deep either.

I have spent a good 20 years of my life performing for, working with and teaching children. 20 years of kids, and sometimes they were theatre classes with 15 students rotating every 3 weeks. That’s a lot of kids. And all of these kids had names beautiful wonderful names, and I am sure I will get to use all of them. Yes, that means Joclyn, Ovailia, Rayn, Elliette, all kids I knew.

Yes that’s right, everyone of my characters are named after a child that I have taught, cared for, had the privilege of touching their lives. All these children are bright lights of happiness, so it’s the least I can do to utilize their names. I haven’t even changed the spelling. Now, some may be freaking out that I am using names of children I know, without their parents’ permission. Well I have actually asked for their parents’ permission, so no worries there. And the ones I couldn’t – well it’s just a name. After all, the characters are not based on these kids. I couldn’t possibly do that. No one would want to read a book with an antagonist who sucks her thumb, worm crawls, and spits up profusely. Ew.

Besides some of them were theatre kids. Because that is where I come from, the theatre. Don’t believe me, I’ll prove it. (yeah, I am totally this scary in real life)

Maybe that’s why my imagination is so ‘out there’. All of those kids seeped inside and decided to stay there.

So writers, how do you find your characters names? And readers, what is the weirdest name you have come across?