#WritersCoffeeClub Jun. 11 – How arbitrary are the names in your work?
Hard to have totally arbitrary names in #HistoricalFiction, since a lot of the characters and places are in the historical record and even those who aren't need some basis in the era and region involved. In one story I named the protagonist “Souri” to mean sound or heights in Korean, which is also an English wordplay on her being a bit sour and regretful about her life circumstances (as in “sorry”). Her antagonist and ex-girlfriend was named “Aji” for baby because it was a common name for women and girls in the era, and also because I saw her as a dangerously immature character who didn’t care who she hurt in the pursuit of her ambitions.
Even when I have more freedom to choose I tend to fall in love with Deep and Meaningful Names. An unreleased science fiction story has four major character names, two of t
... Show more...#WritersCoffeeClub Jun. 11 – How arbitrary are the names in your work?
Hard to have totally arbitrary names in #HistoricalFiction, since a lot of the characters and places are in the historical record and even those who aren't need some basis in the era and region involved. In one story I named the protagonist “Souri” to mean sound or heights in Korean, which is also an English wordplay on her being a bit sour and regretful about her life circumstances (as in “sorry”). Her antagonist and ex-girlfriend was named “Aji” for baby because it was a common name for women and girls in the era, and also because I saw her as a dangerously immature character who didn’t care who she hurt in the pursuit of her ambitions.
Even when I have more freedom to choose I tend to fall in love with Deep and Meaningful Names. An unreleased science fiction story has four major character names, two of them suggestive of the ancient Daoist masters Zhuangzi and Laozi while the other two are from the Buddhist concepts of illusion (Maya) and fleetingness (Chana). No surprise the story is on its second or third rejection now, clearly I need to rack up more rejections xD
