Inspirational Mondays - female character names

I talked a few weeks ago about what inspires me to come up with the names of my male characters – now it is the turn of the female characters.

This is particularly apt since I saw a book recently being advertised. The premise of the story sounded interesting but there was no way I was going to read a story where the heroine was called Edna. To me it just sounds like a very, very old lady. Of course, the author of that particular book may think the same about some of my female character names!

And that is the crux of the issue – whatever inspires you to name your characters could put off someone else who knows a person called by that name, or just because they dislike the name for whatever reason, be it old-fashioned to them or other causes.

A couple of names I chose for my female characters were because I would have given my own daughters those names if I had had children (too late for that now!) – namely Rebecca and Katherine. Gina and Lissa are named for friends. Jessie was originally going to be Jennie – but then I decided to keep that for my own pen name!! I have no idea why I came up with Ellie or Brianna. In fact Brianna started out as Kara but some unknown reason but it just didn’t fit the character and she felt more like a Brianna. (In case you are a regular reader of my books and are wondering when I wrote about a ‘Brianna’ she is the heroine in the forthcoming sci-fi Wife for Three.)

Monica, Celia, Erika are all names I don’t particularly like so I gave them to secondary characters, particularly ones I wanted to dislike! Apologies to anyone with those names!!

I do have one foible that causes hysterical laughter in those who know me – and I have had this from childhood. I regard initial letters of first names as having a specific hair colour. I KNOW – peculiar! So therefore when I wanted a dark haired heroine for Friend or Foe I looked at the letter G (other possibilities were J and R amongst others, but I had already had heroines’ names beginning with those letters) and having considered names beginning with G I then thought of the friend who was the basis for Gina – despite being blonde in real life. (That friend knows I think she should be dark haired!!!!!)

An old friend recently told me she described me as ‘quirky’ to someone else. Yup – that’s me!

Jen