What's in a Name?

I got an email this week that made me think more about this. I'd created a name for a character that turned out to be an actual person's name and they were interested in the story behind the name. How I came up with the name was by combining the name of a childhood toy and the meaning of the word 'rare', and then I added a letter to keep the hero's and heroine's name from sounding too much alike.

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Many of my heroines are named after my sisters who insisted they appear somewhere in a story. I love my sisters--they're as different as I am. Now I have girlfriends who want to be portrayed in stories. Boy are they in for a shock! Well, not really--they all know what I write about and they get a kick out of it.

For the heroes I usually use something that corresponds to where they originate from and what they are. In WITH EXTRA CREAM the hero is a jaguar so he's named Jag. He protects a compound of shifter cats that have ties to an Arizona compound. Hence, we have Jag Arizon. In SCREWED, Purple P Rose was named simply because I filled her vampyre menage with lots of purple prose. And so in that story we also have Peter Hard, Richard E Rection and Bent Staff--yes, they mean exactly what you think!

Then there are those names I used because I simply liked the name. Peri, Trent, Aldan and Bree--they are just neat names.

Have you ever seen your name in a book and wondered how the author came up with it?

Growl and roar-it's okay to let the beast out.-© J. Hali Steele