Google your character Names People!

Would you believe that a popular author named the main character of his book series "James Bond" even though Agatha Christie had already used the name as the hero of one of her stories?

I'd argue that "Miles Archer" is generic enough that it's fine to have two different characters in different books share it.

The name isn't well-known enough for it to be a deliberate reference.

That doesn't seem to follow. It isn't all that obscure in the first place, and even if it were there is really no limit to how obscure a writer can be in making a deliberate reference. It's not hard to imagine that Colleen Hoover picked the name as a deliberate allusion (Ugly Love, the book in question – yes, I googled it – is also set in the same city as The Maltese Falcon, San Francisco); though I think it's more likely that he's called "Miles" and "Archer" because he's an airline pilot, so "air miles" and flying like an arrow.
 
It's smut, so I'll accept it. Maybe write a story about characters with eccentic parents who gave them all famous names.

Hermione Granger (not the fictional just shares the name) meets John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
 
Hi Annie, I think that the point is more around whether the name is well known in spheres that may be outside your current awareness, and whether that affects your choice of the name. I live in Melbourne, which is an Australian Football-crazy town, and everybody knows about Mason Cox and will have a comment on whether his current form justifies selection in the next big match, the Anzac Day (25 April) blockbuster between Essendon and Collingwood, attended by around 100,000 people*. So @Nynah's use of the name in her excellent story gave me a huge chuckle (no harm done - it was just funny!). There's no reasonable way that she would have known about that local context without Googling it.

*For what it's worth, I think that he will be dropped for the big game as his goalkicking wasn't up to scratch last week.

If you like Australian Football and/or Rugby League, you might like my recent story 'Incest In Another Dimension' which is set in Brisbane in 2016, where a young man slips into a strange parallel universe. In this story, some of the first subtle clues that something is amiss is when he sees a car with stickers for the long-defunct South Queensland Crushers NRL team and sees the neighbours going out for a jog wearing Brisbane Bears rather than Brisbane Lions tee-shirts. He then finds out that in this dimension, the Crushers are very much still alive and the Brisbane Bears and Fitzroy Lions never merged back in the mid-1990s, both are still playing in the AFL along with strange new teams that don't exist in the real world.
 
Would you believe that a popular author named the main character of his book series "James Bond" even though Agatha Christie had already used the name as the hero of one of her stories?

It gets better: Fleming intentionally named his James Bond after a real person, without permission. Fortunately the real James Bond enjoyed the joke. One Miss Marple adaptation features fictionalised versions of both Ian Fleming and the real Bond:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_(ornithologist)

If I search for my wallet name, I can find both fictional and real people who share it. I worked in one organisation where we had three pairs of people with the same name. Such things aren't necessarily a problem.
 
It gets better: Fleming intentionally named his James Bond after a real person, without permission. Fortunately the real James Bond enjoyed the joke. One Miss Marple adaptation features fictionalised versions of both Ian Fleming and the real Bond:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_(ornithologist)

If I search for my wallet name, I can find both fictional and real people who share it. I worked in one organisation where we had three pairs of people with the same name. Such things aren't necessarily a problem.
It depends how specific you are. I needed a name for the head of a research organisation in a story. Let's call him Jim. Eventually he needed a surname, fuck it, let's call him Smith. Before publishing, I looked up that name and the field of research and UK. Guess what the head of the main research agency for that subject just happens to be called, in London?

I changed the character's name.

I could be a bit paranoid - I'm still cringing over an incident years ago, where I got an email at work asking if I'd seen a news article relevant to my stuff, and want to chat about it? From - let's call him Julian Black - a not exactly common name, but the name of my best mate from uni who works in that area. So I replied saying it was exactly what you'd expect the organisation in the article to say, and also you owe me a drink you bastard, and have you pulled any fit blokes recently? How about we meet up next Wednesday and you can buy me a pint?

Yes, 'Julian Black' was also the CEO of the organisation concerned, who had commissioned the article. He kindly replied that his wife would object if he went cruising, but he'd happily buy me a drink anyway. And did. Lovely chap. My mate met him some time later, as they got to the point of their work being regularly mistaken for each others.
 
It depends how specific you are. I needed a name for the head of a research organisation in a story. Let's call him Jim. Eventually he needed a surname, fuck it, let's call him Smith. Before publishing, I looked up that name and the field of research and UK. Guess what the head of the main research agency for that subject just happens to be called, in London?
I changed one character's name after meeting somebody with the same first name who was implausibly similar to the way I'd written that character - I'd written the whole thing before I'd ever met this guy, but if he'd somehow happened to read the story it would've been hard to convince him it wasn't based on him. Times like that, yes, change the name. But "somebody with this name exists IRL/in another story" doesn't seem like enough to worry about.
 
I don't see the point in all this. F'rinstance, I search my own slightly unusual name. Dozens of finds... none of them are me. Not even found in the disgusting (and highly inaccurate) "MyLife" any more. I am now a non-entity, evidently. What I'm saying is that every made-up generic name in the English-speaking world is going to be "found" somewhere. So I simply don't bother with searching.

I do, of course, avoid famous names, but most of my characters have surnames plucked from real life. For instance, my MMC's surname was drawn from a supermarket chain, given name is "Steven". Can't get much more generic than "Steve". Another's last name is from a street in our neighborhood. Recent character's name is taken from a building in our town with the long-defunct department store name still visible - and not Montgomery, or Ward, or Sears - but those are certainly viable and realistic choices, too.

Only one "accident" to date, and it would not be something found in a search. I gave a key character the same first name as a casual acquaintance. Didn't know her last name, so gave the character a common but not ridiculously common surname such as "Smith". Turned out I landed right on my friend's full name, reading about her business affairs in the local newspaper. Total, sheer happenstance. A search engine wouldn't have found it. I fortunately discovered it before the story went live, and the character's last name was changed to a furniture store in a city I used to live in.

As to not using last names? I don't agree. In a self-contained short story, I guess it's okay. In an extended serial modeled after plausible, real-life scenarios eventually incorporating dozens of characters, surnames help identify the portrayals as everything develops in a natural fashion, especially when professionals (doctors, lawyers, high-level businesspersons) are involved. Helps set the tone.
 
I'll always remember that story from a Lit poster, that he wrote a story with a female doctor, full name... then a real doctor with that exact same name messaged the author, asking him to change the name because it was showing up on google searches. It was an anal story or something.
 
I was just looking over a story I wrote about three years ago for an anthology here that seems like it won't happen; I'm repurposing it for the Summer contest.

I work with a LOT of people in my day job, so many names carry specific memories and associations for me. I find it hard to name story characters out of some of those people sometimes (I had the same problem when choosing names for my newborns). Well, this story I looked over has a main character whose first name mirrors a real-life person I didn't know when I wrote it, but I know quite well now.

It's enough to make me sorta wanna change the name. Lol.
 
I'm reading a best selling novel by a popular mainstream author. For some reason, the author gave their main protgonist the name "Miles Archer." Now as names go, it's not bad, even clever if you want to make the charater's arc that he is moving towards a target. HOWEVER Dashiell Hammett already quite famously used that name in the "Maltese Falcon" for Sam Spade's partner who was killed on the job and sets the investigation into high gear. I mean the name Miles Archer has been in every movie adaptation and the novel has never been out of print and has millions of fans. So when I read the name "Miles Archer" in THIS novel I think of the Miles Archer from THAT novel. Googling your charcter names literally takes seconds and saves you from potential embarrassment. Joel, Mike and the bots on Mystery Science Theater 3000 had a rule when riffing a movie "Don't make reference to a good movie in your crappy one." Similarly, don't remind people of a much different character in a book by another author who is a far better writer that you are!
What about, say, John Watson?

Ian Fleming took James Bond's name from the real-life author of a book about birds that was on his shelf.
 
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I needed to create a fraternity for one of the main characters in my series, and damn if there isn't one for almost every good combination of greek letters I came up with, lol.
That's why I kept the sorority in my latest story (currently in the queue) nameless. Just "the sorority."
 
I needed to create a fraternity for one of the main characters in my series, and damn if there isn't one for almost every good combination of greek letters I came up with
Did you try Gamma Delta Iota? It translates to GDI, whort for "God-Damned Independent." IOW, someone not in any Greek letter organization. It would be a humorous touch.
 
In the TV series 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' there's a main character named Ronald McDonald. IIRC his father named him that so he would get bullied by other kids, learn to defend himself and grow up tough.

Down here in Australia there was also a player for AFL team the Richmond Tigers who was named Ronald McDonald, but fortunately for him he played in the late 1950s and early 1960s and long before the name became associated with a very famous clown. I hate to think what would have happened if Ronald McDonald had played in later decades.
In the early 1980s, the New York Mets had a first baseman at their AAA club (their top minor-league club) named Ronald McDonald.

When the major league players went on strike in the middle of the 1981 season, their broadcast partners started televising the AAA games just to fill the time the major league teams weren't filling. Suddenly, McDonald started getting all sorts of fan letters, including several which asked him who was minding the restaurants.
 
Some of my characters have chosen aliases based on other people’s characters. Lord Jim Kurtz and Mackenzie MacHeath from Kings in Conflict are two examples. Kurtz is an obsessive fan of Joseph Conrad’s villains and MacHeath named herself after a famous criminal who inspired the song Mack the Knife. Neither is a person on whose bad side you want to get, not that they have a good side.
 
In the late 70s/early 80s I once represented Ronald McDonald before the Stipe at Marlborough Street Magistrates Court. They were, what we called in those days, a transvestite, who, on a trip down from Leeds to London a couple of months earlier had been arrested for soliciting in the street - under the 1959 Act (as a Common Prostitute) - and was appearing for sentence. I'd be there on a couple of other matters and my clerk called and added his name. At 10am I called the names of my clients. His name was followed by laughter. He didn't arrive until nearly mid-day, and each time I called his name the laughter had grown louder. Even I began to suspect that my clerk and the court clerk were having a joke at my expense. When he rolled up at mid-day, in wig and dress, and responded to my call, that got the biggest laugh of all.

Well, he'd been charged under the wrong Act. 'Common Prostitute' was a term of art which applied only to women. He should have been charged under the 56 Act, as a 'man'. I asked him, if necessary, would he produce his penis in court; he said he would. I made the appropriate submission. The Stipe did not require Ronald to do so, being otherwise satisfied that he was not a woman, and dismissed the charge as misconceived. He even granted a certificate for counsel, which meant I'd be paid.
This is the best story I've seen on this forum. I had to re-read different parts of it several times, not because it's poorly written, but because what you're saying is so wild my brain did not want to latch onto it.
 
Some of my characters have chosen aliases based on other people’s characters. Lord Jim Kurtz and Mackenzie MacHeath from Kings in Conflict are two examples. Kurtz is an obsessive fan of Joseph Conrad’s villains and MacHeath named herself after a famous criminal who inspired the song Mack the Knife. Neither is a person on whose bad side you want to get, not that they have a good side.
Another thing you can do is take some combination of a real person's nickname and middle name and make a character name from that.
 
I disagree, Michael J. Nelson of Rifftrax and MST3K is forever relating how odd it was for him as a kid to have the same name as Llotd Bridge's character in the enormously popular television series, "Sea Hunt." He even my Llotd Bridges when he was an adult and they joked about it. I went to college with William Shakespeare (not the same one) we were forever razzing him and asking for his autograph and so on
I went to high school with a James Bond and a James Kirk. Bond was intentional, Kirk was not as they were born before Star Trek. I've also worked with a John Ritter and a Sally Forth, though Forth was her married name.
 
Personally, I find the premise of the OP baffling, though many of the stories that have ensued are extremely entertaining.

I don't care if I accidentally name a character the same as another writer? I don't even understand why there seems to be a consensus that doing so would be embarrassing.

Naming characters was actually one of my most persistent sources of unnecessary writer's block when I was younger. I'd get to a point where I'd have to name someone, and I'd just stare at the page in analysis paralysis trying to come up with something clever. Often I'd just get frustrated and walk away.

Eventually, I had to accept the fact that clever naming is not one of my strengths. Occasionally I stumble into something good. But mostly I'm pleased to avoid stumbling out of writer's blocking myself. I usually just jot down the first or second name that issues forth from my subconscious and that's the end of it.
 
I seem to operate at either end of a spectrum. Either I had the name of the character first, and then they get fleshed out while writing 'to match the name' or I have a fully developed character whose name doesn't quite sound right or fit.

In the latter case, I try to think of what the other characters are likely to call them. All depends on situation: who the various players are, from where in the world, what timeline they inhabit. A bit like naming kids. I used to test out names by seeing if I could imagine the names in various situations: Jerome! Take out the garbage. (No.) Ashley, your hair needs braiding. (Double no.) Clive Letchworthy, straighten your tie! (yes.)
 
I rarely use last names at all, so it isn't really a problem. When I do use a last name, it is usually presented separately from the first name ("Hello, Mr. Smith!") so the reader would have to go out of their way to put them together.

I also like to have different nicknames for the same character when addressed by others in the cast. I think "pet names" give the story depth. Like the way nobody but Kirk calls McCoy "Bones."
 
Few of my characters have family names. Those that do are either because dialogue requires it ("Come in, Mr Smith"), as part of a joke, or a reference to an old comedy sketch.
 
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