influences...

[supermonkeyfics.livejournal.com]

Has anybody ever changed their opinion about a name after stumbling across a fictional character they particularly love/hate w/ that name? How about a real person?

I could come up w/ a long list of names I liked as a kid because they were the names of favorite characters, but right now I'm going to focus on names I actually changed my mind about because of a character/person.

Henry - I didn't like it much until the English dub of Digimon Tamers came out & I became a fan of Henry Wong [Jenrya/Jianliang Lee]. But the real tipping point was when I read The Time Traveler's Wife & fell in love w/ Henry DeTamble. Dunno if I'd use it on a kid, but definitely an option in my writing.

Clare - Time Traveler's Wife again (Clare Abshire DeTamble). Never had much appeal to me until then; seemed kinda... prissy? I dunno. Now I think it has a nice ring to it, though I do prefer Claire over Clare.

Olivia - Sorry, I know there's a mass of Olivia-lovers out there these days, but this name really bugged me until I became a Law & Order: SVU addict. The character Olivia Benson made this name tolerable & even likable in my eyes.

Benjamin - A thoroughly unappealing boys' name in my mind until recently. One of my best friends is a Ben, & the name eventually grew on me enough for me to determine that it makes a nice middle name for one of my favorite boys' names (Connor).

I'm pretty sure there have also been one or two names that fictional characters ruined for me, but I can't think of any right now.

Comments

[in_excelsis_dea.livejournal.com]

Name me a name, and 90% of the time, I can relate it to another name or character or something like that. So yes, some names do hold special meaning or I particularly dislike simply because of a fictional character that happens to be named that. There's also my extreme dislike for naming a child after a character in a book/TV show/movie (irony is that I myself received my name that way), which slims down the list of names I could use a lot.