Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The name game

I've now gone through several different names for my heroine in the latest WIP. I usually don't have this much trouble with names for my characters, they just pop into my head, but for some reason, she is remaining illusive. She's been Etta, Bridget, Delia, Brianna, and back and forth between Kathleen and Maeve. I like Maeve, but it may be too foreign sounding. Kathleen is feminine yet strong. Maeve means "intoxicating" in Irish and the hero is intoxicated by her. Her traits are balanced/fears risk/ unemotional. Which I think fits the name Kathleen more than Maeve, yet I keep veering back to Maeve.

Anyway, stay tuned to see who the heroine turns out to be. I wrote my opening hook, sent it to my editor. She loved it and was ecstatic I was working on the next Halsey book! So I guess I'm headed in the right direction.

5 comments:

chanceofbooks said...

I like Maeve, but Kathleen is nice too. I think naming characters is harder than naming babies and puppies :)

Elisabeth Naughton said...
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Elisabeth Naughton said...

Way to go on getting the hook done! That's the hardest part. I'm struggling with mine...AGAIN. GAH!!!

I personally like Kathleen. I try to stay away from names that might be mispronounced by readers. Don't know why, just a personal thing. The last book I read, the hero's name was Cian. I kept pronouncing it wrong in my head until I flipped to the back of the book and read the glossary where it gave the correct pronounciation. It's Irish (and I'm Irish, too, DUH!), so I should have known, but I didn't.

I had a character in my book named Maren. I absolutely love that name. Everyone who's read it pronounces it wrong, which floors me because Maren is the name of Mel Gibson's dead wife in Braveheart, so I just figured everone would know how to pronounce it. Guess not.

Paty Jager said...

I've pretty much decided to stay with Maeve. Anyway it worked well with the 6 pages I managed to pump out this morning before I went to work.

Anonymous said...

I see you've already chosen Maeve, dang it. My middle name is Kathleen, so of course, that's my choice being selfish and all. LOL

Maeve is pronounced Mehv, right?

I'm with Eli on the whole, if it's hard to pronounce, don't use it thing, or at least explain how to say it. I would never have guessed that Cian is pronounced Keen, and I'm Irish, hence Kathleen. ;)

So I hope Maeve likes her name; at least it's not Dorcas. Ugh! What a mean thing to call your child. LOL