Insane Dames

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Reusing Names

by Sue McKlveen

Recently, I began a new manuscript. I was all excited, using my sister's first name for the heroine and a new name that I hadn't used before for the hero. I began working on it, bringing in characters who resembled mob members, handing out mob-sounding names like candy.

That's when it hit me. These names were sounding very familiar. Since I'd already written 22 other manuscripts, I decided to take a slight detour off my writing journey and began re-skimming all of those other 22 stories. I was amazed, taking note of all the names on a spreadsheet.

It seems that I love certain names for books. For example, I have the book entitled 'All for Aaron', where the autistic child is named Aaron. However, I also have an inspirational novel where the evil terrorist rebel is also named Aaron. I also have another story where the bodyguard is named Aaron. I was beginning to see a pattern.

In real life, I'd never name a child Aaron, because I'd probably always misspell it, forgetting the second 'a' or something. But for books, it seemed to me, at the time of the writing of the story, that names like Aaron were really great ideas. As were Jack, Pam, Jim, Charlotte, and so on.

I had to rewrite some of my stories. I had to change these names and all forms of that name (such as 'James' could be 'Jimmy' or 'Jim', and all would have to be changed if I renamed the guy Jake).

But why should I do that? Would readers notice if I have a bad evil man named Aaron holding a gun and also have a poor defenseless four-year old named Aaron? Yes, and that's my fear. I want them to remember the sweet innocent child, hated by his real father, but clinging to the one thing that made him an individual--the name of Aaron. I didn't want the reader to have any hint that another Aaron wanted to kill people.

I wrote to a friend of mine about it, saying I had to take a writing break and go through these 22 other books to find all my names I'd used. We both chuckled over email about it, because I couldn't even remember main character names.

Some writers do use the same names in all their books, but that shows they have no creativity, in my mind. They have set basic characters named, for example, John and Amber, and they will be the same characters throughout all their books. Even if they're described differently, they're the same character.

Think about it. If Margaret Mitchell had written another book after her first book, Gone With the Wind came out in 1936, and had named the heroine Scarlett, would readers notice? You betcha. Even if the second Scarlett didn't live in the south or look or act like the original Scarlett O'Hara. Even if an author today uses the name Scarlett, don't you think readers will think of the famous book, even for a split second?

My recommendation? Think up different names. Use ones no one would ever use. The same thing goes for last names, as well. Who knows...your book may even make an unpopular name popular some day.

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