Name Game…

When I’m developing a new story, I spend countless hours just naming the characters. I have multiple copies of baby name books and spend more time than I care to admit pouring over thousands of names trying to find the right fit. When all is said and done, I typically have a goto list that tends to repeat in most projects, but they’re names that I like and don’t mind using over and over again, as long as the characters of the same name aren’t essentially the same character from story to story. And even then, I end up using the names anyway because I am nothing if not a creature of habit.

I think almost every single story project I’ve worked on in my writing life has had a character named Matt. My fixation with the name Matthew and its subsequent nicknames has been long-standing. It would have been my middle name had I been born a boy. It was the name of my very favorite Mouseketeer, whom I loved so very much through my formative teen years. And it’s held by countless other celebrity crushes I’ve waxed obsessive about over the years.

Because it’s completely irrelevant: the top Matts of the list right now are Matt Hullum (hello, Rooster Teeth), Matt Nathanson (hello fucking talented…and pretty), and Matt Morris (because always).

Despite reoccurring in just about every project, the token Matt character varies greatly from story to story (as much as my characters vary…because if we’re being honest…they don’t). So even if it’s terribly repetitive to use the same name in every plot, it’s not the same character.

And then there are the other characters. Some names just click as soon as I put them down on the page. Others…go through countless renames before I find the right one. And even when I finally decide on a name, it doesn’t always fit just how I want it to. Sometimes I keep circling back to the same name because I can’t seem to picture that character with any other, even if it’s not quite right for the story. I’m running in circles with this naming dilemma right now with the current project (the Kate and Michael premise). I agonized over using the name Kate for a long time because there are at least three other projects in the pipeline with a character named Kate. And not just any character, she’s the main character. One project is inconsequential, one hasn’t been touched in…probably a year or more, and one…we’ll see yet. This one…as much as I scour name books, I keep circling back to Kate and can’t picture her with any other name. I don’t know why. There are a few other characters on the list that I’m having the same battle with, one of which is a fairly significant player in the game. And yet…when I named the character Michael…it fit and it stuck.

So where was I going with all of this? Hell if I know. But it’s not stopping me from babbling incoherently about it.

There has been one character in particular that has been giving me trouble in this current name game and, as per usual, I keep circling back to the same name even though it doesn’t quite fit. (The name in question being Joel. I landed on that name and then realized it just wasn’t going to work after writing fifty-some pages. But it’s stuck in my brain anyway. Because hello are you new???) So I’ve been racking my brain trying to find the right name for this character. I almost used Joe before I realized I had just named two important characters Mike and Joe and things just got awkward. The names on their own work fine in my head, but pairing them together gets a little weird.

I might have it figured out though. I was laying in bed trying to get to sleep (*snirt* riiiiight) and a dim light bulb went off. I’ll have to find/replace all and see how things read. Even if find/replace all isn’t going to quite work because there are nicknames involved and I’d be better off finding each instance of Joel individually and picking and chosing which name or nickname fits best in a given place. Which wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t used the name Joel 138 times so far in this fekking project.

I am a glutton for punishment.

Clearly.

Goddammit, Joel.

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