October Novel Prep Challenge

You know, I've never had an "aha!" moment with a character name, either, but I don't know that you're supposed to. What happens with me is that I eventually get to know my character, after I've named them, and then the name fits. Mildred just IS Mildred. Dana is Dana. It's who they are. Once you profile them, write about their history, and place them into situations with your other characters, they start to feel like real people and you couldn't possibly change their name anymore, because that would be like changing their whole identity.

Consider names in reality. Have you ever stopped to think, either with yourself or with people you meet, what made parents pick the name they picked? Do you think they had an "aha!" moment? Or do you think they agonized over the name until they finally reached agreement and wrote something on a birth certificate, only to feel doubt and regret? But they eventually get over it as they get to know the little person bearing the name.

Don't get me wrong; some people change their names for various reasons (I'm looking at you, Storm Machine ) but even when that happens, it takes a looong time for people who knew you by your former name to fully buy into your new name, especially if you don't see them very often. The people who do the best job of buying into your new name are the people who see you every day, who associate your identity, the core of who you are and who you are becoming as time passes, with that new name. I have a cousin who changed her name from Tristan to Lori literally twenty years ago, and I still think of her as Tristan (don't tell her, lol) because I barely ever talk to her or about her. I get why she changed it (she married a man named Christenson, and it sounded too alike, so she changed her name to our grandmother's name, Lorraine) but the thing is, I don't think of her as Christenson either. I think of her by her maiden name. Because the cousin I know is still the cousin she was when we were kids.

Cheers,
Michelle