Google your character Names People!

[Wifetheif]

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!

 

[Trionyx]

Not a bad idea. In general, I try to avoid using last names unless they are essential to the plot and thus eliminate the issue altogether.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't really have a problem with this, actually. It would be weird if I read a contemporary book with a character whose name was "Uriah Heep," which is a unique name, but if it's a more common name, I don't see the problem. I wouldn't be bothered reading a story with a character named Miles Archer, and I've read that Hammett novel.

 

[ChasBozwell30]

Good point, however every name will probably have been used by someone somewhere at some point...

 

[yowser]

For me it's a bit of a fun game to tweak names of well known (or obscure) literary (or other) characters and include them in a story, in the off chance that a reader will notice and maybe get a chuckle or a jolt of recognition. The 'Sophy Eastern' in one of my tales would be familiar to anyone who remembered 'Sophie Western' from Fielding's Tom Jones.

 

[Wifetheif]

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

 

[NotWise]

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

Some parents should be disciplined for the names they give their kids.

 

[Voboy]

I google all kinds of stuff, not just names. My current WiP has references to a long-ago frat party, and I needed a website for my character to buy a vibe from. In both cases, I invented something I made sure didn't have a web presence. Not because I fear a lawsuit or anything, but because I'm aware of how easy it is for a reader to be distracted by something they think they already know. If I arbitrarily claim the frat party was at Sigma Chi, then everyone who reads the piece who was also a Sig Chi is likely to be jarred.

It shocked me when my pick for a sex-toy website wasn't already in use. Lol.

 

[lovecraft68]

I created a POS character, a wealthy sadistic creepy "dom" named Tristan Black, and had him slaughtered is slow, gory agonizing fashion.

I wonder if people who read it knew who he is in my mind.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

I google all kinds of stuff, not just names. My current WiP has references to a long-ago frat party, and I needed a website for my character to buy a vibe from. In both cases, I invented something I made sure didn't have a web presence. Not because I fear a lawsuit or anything, but because I'm aware of how easy it is for a reader to be distracted by something they think they already know. If I arbitrarily claim the frat party was at Sigma Chi, then everyone who reads the piece who was also a Sig Chi is likely to be jarred.

It shocked me when my pick for a sex-toy website wasn't already in use. Lol.

This is one of the things I had a hard time with. 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. I finally found one that I think was either not taken or a defunct fraternity, and went with that.

I love to sprinkle real life stuff in my stories that's accurate, but if there's anything sexual with them, I fictionalize it unless its such a public place that nobody is going to lose their minds if I refer to it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I don't really have a problem with this, actually. It would be weird if I read a contemporary book with a character whose name was "Uriah Heep," which is a unique name, but if it's a more common name, I don't see the problem. I wouldn't be bothered reading a story with a character named Miles Archer, and I've read that Hammett novel.

Well, that is Dickens. I made up a name, Holly Sykes, for a character. Then I found that the same name was used by David Mitchell in his novel The Bone Clocks a few years ago. No big deal I guess, and no one has ever commented on it. I guess the novel is a bit obscure?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IHMF9KE/?bestFormat=true&k=the bone clocks david mitchell&ref_=nb_sb_ss_w_scx-ent-pd-bk-d_de_k0_1_15&crid=X7IDC3ZUOVQD&sprefix=The Bone Clocks

https://classic.literotica.com/s/mrs-sykess-last-brooklyn-exit

I picked Holly as the first name from a photo I used for inspiration. Sykes I think came from Sykesville, NJ, a town I used to drive through. It doesn't bother me at all.

 

[THBGato]

Love the Bone Clocks, but I honestly wouldn't have remembered.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

 

[RetroFan]

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!

LOL - One of my stories is called 'Grumpy Humphrey's Easy Wife', a title I chose because I thought it sounded amusing. What I didn't know at the time was that there is a celebrity pet called Grumpy Humphrey, a small dog. While Grumpy Humphrey the dog has never reached the same levels of fame as the late Grumpy Cat in the 2010s, he still has a fairly significant following online. I just hope some nice wholesome family looking up amusing Grumpy Humphrey videos online don't stumble upon my mean-spirited story full of horrible people doing horrible things with numerous explicit sex acts.

 

[RetroFan]

Some parents should be disciplined for the names they give their kids.

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.

 

[Nynah]

In one of my stories, I gave the villainous landlord the name "Mason Cox"; I was just putting two "strong" sounding names together to create one that would give the character some menace. However, @Actingup pointed out to me that there is an actual person named Mason Cox who is, by all rights, very nice and certainly not any sort of villain so I really should have done my homework on that one.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

In one of my stories, I gave the villainous landlord the name "Mason Cox"; I was just putting two "strong" sounding names together to create one that would give the character some menace. However, @Actingup pointed out to me that there is an actual person named Mason Cox who is, by all rights, very nice and certainly not any sort of villain so I really should have done my homework on that one.

If you use any real name, someone has that name. That's what "real name" means.

-Annie

 

[NotWise]

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.

Johnny Cash had a popular song on the same theme. A Boy Named Sue.

 

[Actingup]

If you use any real name, someone has that name. That's what "real name" means.

-Annie

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.

 

[XerXesXu]

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 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.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Don't need to Google names if all your characters remain anonymous.

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 met someone who's named after a former president of my country who did not have a good reputation during his second period. He got bullied at a previous job because of it.

 

[vanmyers86]

I always Google names, just in case. Probably the journalism background bubbling up. The one time I did find that a character's name matched someone's (a drummer in a thrash band), I had another character mention the drummer.
I overthink, therefore I am.

 

[nice90sguy]

This thread made me aware that I always use only first names, never last names, in my stories. I'd never noticed that before.

I'd also find reading the name "Miles Archer" slightly distracting, because of the Maltese Falcon. The name isn't well-known enough for it to be a deliberate reference.

 

[StillStunned]

One of the unfinished sequels to Lust Demon's Orgy gives the demonic narrator's name as Valentine Day:

The name thing began as a joke. At a certain point it became difficult to operate in society without official records of who you were, and I had to decide what I wanted to be called.

“Valentine” was perhaps not the name most often associated with me, but “Hot Uninhibited Hell-Inspired Fucking” wasn’t an option. From there, picking “Day” as my official surname was a logical step, even though at the time few people got the reference.

Then Valentine’s Day became a big commercial thing. I decided to make the most of it and went into the business of romantic presents. From cards, flowers, chocolates, stuffed toys and hearts to diamond jewellery and romantic getaways. If I’d needed the money, I’d have been impressed with my own genius. As it was, the company let me live a life of luxury while keeping busy enough not to get bored.

I know it's only tangentially related to the thread topic, but I've been sitting on this for more than a year now, so screw anyone who complains.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

This thread made me aware that I always use only first names, never last names, in my stories. I'd never noticed that before.

I'd also find reading the name "Miles Archer" slightly distracting, because of the Maltese Falcon. The name isn't well-known enough for it to be a deliberate reference.

I jump every time I read it because I'm a specific type of nerd.

"Miles" is Latin for soldier. (It's the root word for "military".) So his name is "soldier archer".

-Annie