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What’s in a Name? 
 

~Romeo & Juliet, William Shakespeare 
 

While pining over her beloved Romeo, Juliet may have been content to easily dismiss the important of a name, but I’m not willing to be quite so cavalier when it comes to the names of my characters.  A name is so much more than just a way of differentiating between multiple characters.  A name possesses that very first impression.  A name can help set the tone and personality of that character before he even bothers to open his mouth for the first time.  An exotic name can conjure up distant locales and long dead civilizations.  Meanwhile, a commonly used name can create a sense of familiarity or even allow a character to instantly become lost in a sea of similarly named people so that he had no true identity of his own. 

When naming my characters, I find myself dependent upon my copy of “The Writer’s Digest Character Naming Sourcebook.”  The book not only breaks down names across carious cultures, but includes more classical and historical names such as those from Arthurian legend.  I am convinced I cannot live without this book. 

When naming a character, there are several things that I must first know.  One thing is the area the character is from.  When the time came to name Jabari, I first knew that he was from Egypt of Nubian descent and that he was more than two thousand years old.  As a result, I needed an old Egyptian name for him.  For Sadira, I knew that she was born during the height of the Persian Empire.  Meanwhile, Danaus was from old Greek and Roman mythology. 

Unfortunately, by the time I reached my third book, I discovered a new problem.  Many of my names had a similar sound and cadence.  Looking over my character list, I found that I had an overwhelming preference for two-syllable names that started with the letters A, D, J, and M.  When I created characters in my third, fourth, and fifth books, I now had to compare the would-be names against an existing list to make sure it didn’t sound like any of the other names.  I needed a sense of balance. 

Of course, as with everything, there is an exception to the rule and it only seems fitting that my main character Mira is that exception.  For many years, I harbored a love affair with the name Miranda.  In fact, I wrote a series of lengthy scenes centered around a sarcastic, hot-tempered woman named Miranda.  Then in one scene, I needed a nickname, but didn’t want to use Randi.  Luckily, one of my secondary characters opened her mouth and called her Mira.  And as a result, Mira was officially born.  When I started “Nightwalker,”  I simply lifted Mira from all my practice scenes and dropped her into the series, fully formed and full of attitude. 

Looking ahead to the books I am currently working on for the Dark Days series, I will admit that I have expanded my resources beyond the “Character Naming Sourcebook” to include Godchecker.com.  And yes, there is a very specific method to my madness when it came to using the specific site. 
 

~Jocelynn Drake

Author of the Dark Days series

Nightwalker, August 2008

Dayhunter, May 2009