Awkward moment when you realize you must change a character's name

Lighthearter · Apr 22, 2012

Oh, I definitely have been there, trust me

-Lighthearter

Hip-Hop-a-potamus · Apr 22, 2012

kaitie said:
Yup, but that's the hard way. It takes forever to do, and unless a character is named Balthazar or something, most names are hard to just find/replace in an easy way.

How is it hard?

It finds the word. If you want to change it, change it. If you don't, you bypass it. Seems like it's easier than giving yourself headaches down the road, unless you're REALLY overusing the character's name.

kaitie · Apr 22, 2012

When I did it, it was for one of the main characters who appeared a ton in the book. And it's not hard, just time consuming. And the reason I mentioned it in the first place was because blacbird said you could just find/replace, and I mentioned that it wasn't that easy because when I did it for a name I initially thought "this won't cause any problems" about, it turned out to cause a lot. I had to go back and find each one individually (which I did again with find/replace, for what it's worth) and handle them one at a time.

It's not a big deal. I thought it was funny, honestly. Who hasn't done something stupid like that at some point in their life?

muravyets · Apr 22, 2012

blacbird said:
Which is why is said it isn't a random matter, only that there are always options. We've seen people in forums here insist that "Rachel" or "Sarah" are names carrying innate "meaning" that can't possibly be altered without ruining the story. To me, as reader, that's utter hogwash. I've known dozens of people named Rachel and Sarah, along with Michael and James and John and Robert and Mary and Anne and Jennifer and Jason and Kate (god knows how many of those), and they all span a big spectrum of human possibilities.

Sure, if you're aiming for serious, you can't be utterly random. Douglas Adams, a satirist, made mileage out of having a mage named "Slartybartfast", and embarrassed about it, but that worked precisely because it satirized the practice of writers employing portentous-sounding names for such characters. Likewise J.K. Rowling, calling her hideous terrifying giant three-headed dog "Fluffy".

But pinning your story to a single unalterable character name strikes me as ridiculous.

caw

Well, yeah, that's true.

Hip-Hop-a-potamus said:
You guys know you can search individually AS you're replacing instead of doing a universal "find and replace" right?

It might seem tedious as you're doing it, but it saves time when you don't have to go back later and fix errors like these.

As a former proofreader/copy editor, I can say this is where the aforementioned issues of naming a character Will come in, because trust me, that is a shit-ton of Find Next through countless hits that are not the name you're looking for, and gods help you if you get into too much of a zone and suddenly wonder if you replaced something you shouldn't have. It's especially daunting if you have to do it through an entire novel MS.

My preferred method is to do a refined global, and then a Find Next fix search, and finally, later, a manual read-through. Yes, that much work. I try to space it out over time.

blacbird · Apr 22, 2012

kaitie said:
Yup, but that's the hard way. It takes forever to do,

Not really. Not anymore than any other kind of search/possibly replace editing, which I do all the time, ferreting out things I know I overuse, or which tend to be superfluous (e.g., "It was X that did Y" sentence constructions, or my fetish about overuse of the prefix "some-"). It's always a matter of just clicking through the occurrences, and deciding with another click which to change and which not to.

caw

Hip-Hop-a-potamus · Apr 22, 2012

blacbird said:
Not really. Not anymore than any other kind of search/possibly replace editing, which I do all the time, ferreting out things I know I overuse, or which tend to be superfluous (e.g., "It was X that did Y" sentence constructions, or my fetish about overuse of the prefix "some-"). It's always a matter of just clicking through the occurrences, and deciding with another click which to change and which not to.

caw

Exactly. I'd rather take a lot of time, and a lot of effort now looking over everything with a magnifying glass than have an agent catch an embarrassing gaffe down the road. I did fifteen rewrites on this last one. And while I know I STILL haven't caught everything (a change I made recently caused a misplaced modifier I just caught. I HATE that!), I'm better off, I know.

HH, obviously has no characters named Will or would feel the pain more.

Devil Ledbetter · Apr 22, 2012

shaldna said:
I once called a character Michael Jackson and had finished the first draft before I realised what I'd done.

In the movie Office Space, there is a character named Michael Bolton who gets a lot of crap for having the same name as the singer, two characters in the same kind of role both named "Bob," confusion when the LI's sexual history includes a man with the same name as the MC's boss, and competing technology companies named Intertech and Intertrode. I loved the way the movie casually used name confusion as a plot device.

shaldna said:
I don't think you have much to worrry about with 'Stacey' though - it's a very common name, and weirdly it's really popular here as a boys name, but as a girls name in other places. Look at it this way, how many rockers out there are called 'Johnny' or 'Steve' etc.

Stacey is an unusual enough name for a male in the US. What bugs me most is that they're both fictional characters who are rock stars. This would be like having a book about a boy wizard named Harry, or a teen vampire named Edward. It's a no-go. And while Rock of Ages cast names perhaps aren't yet a part of the collective conscience, once it's a Tom Cruise movie they sure will be.

I haven't though of a replacement name yet, but I'm resigned to the name change.

Mr Flibble · Apr 22, 2012

blacbird said:
Which is not a failing of the search/replace function, but a failing of the writer.

caw

Fin and replace is good. But it does not replace a bloody good read through (after if nesc.), to catch any howlers. A program =/= a person/writer.

eward · Apr 22, 2012

I change names when I realize I've already used that name for a main or secondary character in another one of my stories. For some reason, I do this a lot.

But otherwise, no. . .

WordCount · Apr 22, 2012

I sometimes start a WIP with characters named Bob and Steve, develop their personality, and then look up a name that matches it.

I do it rarely, but I do it.

Becky Black · Apr 23, 2012

I had to change the name of a character when I realised it probably was a bit too much like nominative determinism to have a geneticist named Gene. He'd already had his name changed from Carl because there was a Carla in the story, whose name couldn't change.

I wouldn't mind, but the character had been dead for years and never actually appeared in the story, he was only mentioned. For a dead guy he certainly was a lot of trouble.

LadyA · Apr 23, 2012

For some reason, I have a fondness for calling secondary characters REALLY outdated names. Like, Victorian names. The Brightest Fell has a Jemima, a Kitty, a Hetty, and I could go on. Not as bad as Melvin Burgess with his baby boomer names - 3 YA love interests/secondary characters for a book written in the early 2000s: Jackie, Sue and Deborah...

Plus, I've had to change a name when I had a kid die in a car accident and a kid WITH THE SAME FIRST NAME died in a car accident at my school soon after. And I've had a couple called Cat (f) and Frankie (m), when there's a famous lesbian couple on a UK TV programme called, you guessed it, Cat and Frankie. My sister, a massive fan of the TV prog, said she kept picturing Frankie (rowing star jock) as female, so I had to change that.

Selcaby · Apr 23, 2012

DokodemoElisa said:
You know, I don't really do the replacement-name thing very often, but I do have times when I seriously wonder about spelling. The main character in the only series of novels I ever managed to have published (yet, I suppose, if I want to be positive about it) is named Kinlea, but he's in England, not Ireland, so I found myself wondering if it should really be Kinleigh or some such, especially since he's male. Does anyone else get the feeling we WAY over think these things? Incidentally, I left him Kinlea and decided his mother's family was originally from the county in Ireland. Problem solved, but was it really worth thinking that much about? We writers, as a species, are perhaps too prone to justification and over-thinking for our own good.

You'd have been fine to just leave that one unchanged. England is full of people with Irish names, and no the spelling wouldn't be changed when they crossed the Irish Sea, unless it was an Irish-language name that was really hard to spell.

Incidentally, unless you were from a landowning family and were named after the place you owned, back before surnames were official the usual way to be named after a place was to move somewhere else. That way, when people needed to distinguish you from the other Toms in your new home of Upton-under-Sheepshank, you could be Tom from York (Tom York*) as opposed to Tom the smith (Tom Smith) or Tom who never grew taller than five feet (Tom Little). Centuries later, Tom York's descendants might still be living in Upton-under-Sheepshank but have probably lost all record of their ancestor who came from York. And York would not be full of people called York, but might be home an Upton or two.

* Not the one in Radiohead!

ccarver30 · Apr 23, 2012

I am extremely attached to my character names- once there are set. Even my screen name is actually a character name- Clayton Carver. He is the first character I ever created. He looks like Paul Leyden. Check out that hot piece of a$$!

Debbie V · Apr 23, 2012

writingismypassion said:
My problem is I end up with a name that doesn't seem very popular, but then I see it everywhere after begining the story. For instance, in my SHARDS OF GLASS novel, the MC's name is Emily. After I wrote it, I saw that name everywhere. Now I'm starting another story and the MC's name is Kallie. It was going to be Callie, but I've seen that name a lot recently, even though I don't recall seeing it ever before. Just the way it goes.

I use online census data for a city (if the book is in a real place) and name my characters based on that. I don't want a top ten name, but something in the bottom fifty for the year of birth feels real without feeling like it's every kid.

Census data lets me know how popular my chosen name will be in a few years. It shows trends.

kaitie · Apr 23, 2012

I agree. Sometimes having a name that becomes too trendy right now can make a character seem immature or seem unrealistic. It's unfortunate because a lot of names I've LOVED for years have become really popular in the past few years.

ccarver30 · Apr 23, 2012

Writingismypassion - I think that always happens. Once I got my new car, I noticed there were 4839248392 on the road. I am sure we didn't all buy them on the same day, I just became conscious of their existence.

elindsen · Apr 23, 2012

Thank God I've never had to change a name

Adam · Apr 23, 2012

I Google my character's names prior to using them to make sure there're no issues that would bug me later on. The only time I've needed to change a name is when I've accidentally used two very similar sounding names in the same WIP.

ravenmuse · Apr 23, 2012

It is sometimes a bit of a moral dilemma for me if I'm halfway writing a story and then I meet someone who has the same first name as a slightly (or not so slightly) flawed character in my story... will they take offence? Will they take it personally? Should I change the name? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't... it could get to the point where you compulsively keep doing it and it borders on paranoia.

Buffysquirrel · Apr 23, 2012

ccarver30 said:
Writingismypassion - I think that always happens. Once I got my new car, I noticed there were 4839248392 on the road. I am sure we didn't all buy them on the same day, I just became conscious of their existence.

I am still trying to prove that there really are that many silver cars on the road these days, rather than my happening to notice them cos our car is silver, and so was the car we had before. I'm sure we were parked the other day and a silver car was parked nearby, two more parked over the road, and another one drove past, then another, then....

Where do they come from, all these silver cars????

Ralyks · Apr 23, 2012

I just realized that my two main female characters in my current WIP, both potential romantic interests for the male MC, have names that are just too close together. Lynn and Lydia. Both Ly. I'm afraid this might be confusing. So I want to change one. The problem is that nothing else sounds right. I've gotten used to them as these named people. The reader who has never seen them hasn't, but I have. Theoretically, I think a name change in order. I just can't seem to do it.

kaitie · Apr 23, 2012

What about Lynn and Dia? You can keep the name partially, but there would be no confusion.

Ralyks · Apr 23, 2012

kaitie said:
What about Lynn and Dia? You can keep the name partially, but there would be no confusion.

Today I ended up going with Connie instead of Lydia...not even remotely close, but somehow it worked for me. Go figure.

flarue · Apr 23, 2012

For some reason, I keep using the letter "S" to chose names in my current WIP. Naturally, most of those names had to go except for the 2 most important "S" characters to avoid mucho confusion. I'm not sure what it is about that letter that I like so much.

I've also changed one of my MC's names about 5 times either because some of the choices were too close to people that I know of IRL (and constantly made me think of them, which didn't help me while writing), or because in my mind, no name has suited him right or his background. I'm crossing my fingers that my most recent choice finally sticks.

Awkward moment when you realize you must change a character's name

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