Fictional characters!

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

I got bored today and made a family tree of characters from a series of short stories (I've already written/I'm currently in the process of writing/I plan to write in the future).

First and middle names are here, but I will likely never use the middle names.

Margaret Rose and Robert Charles (born in 1930... based on this I guess you can figure out the approximate timeline; I don't feel like writing dates after each name) have five children: Robert Charles Jr. (nn Bob), Linda Kathleen, twins Hillary Donna and Janet Ellen, and Nicholas Martin (nn Nick).

Bob is married to Sarah-Jane; their kids are Robin Michael (married to Lucy), Christine Diana (nn Kristy), and Stephen Jeffrey (nn Steve).

Hillary and her husband Dennis have two girls, Kimberly Shannon and Adair Juliet.

Kimberly is dating a guy named Jason Scott, whose older sister Riley Caroline Caroline Reilly, who prefers to be called by her middle name (a family name) plays a prominent role in the stories.

Janet and her husband John Sheridan have three kids: Madeleine Siobhan (nn Lennie), Anastasia Rayanne (nn Stacy), and John Sheridan Jr.

Nick is married to a woman named Catherine Laurel.

What do you think?

Comments

[tryyingtoevolve.livejournal.com]

LOVE Robin on a boy. Robin Michael is a great name.

[tryyingtoevolve.livejournal.com]

PS - The one thing I'd mention is that Riley seems too modern day trendy to be used on a girl of that age. From your timeline, I'm guessing she's about my age (or maybe I'm wrong. About 20 years old or so?) And if she's any older than maybe 8 or 9, I'd say stay away from the really obvious boys-names-on-girls. Riley is much more common on girls now than on boys, but 20 years ago, a girl never would have been named that unless their parents were a little off the wall, and judging by the name Jason on her brother, I'm guessing they were more mainstream than that. I'd stick to something like Ashley or Sarah or something that was popular in the 80s. She sounds like a little kid with that name, because it's one of those trendy names that dates people to the late 90s/early 2000s.

[ex-bluebonn.livejournal.com]

I second this. I go to the SSA Web Site (http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/), plug in my character's birth year, and then sort through the 20/100/500/1000 most popular names of that year.

[tryyingtoevolve.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, my friends all laugh at me when I do that, and I'm like, "But it HELPS!"

[ex-bluebonn.livejournal.com]

IT DOES!

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

I did that for all my other characters except Hillary and Adair.

[ex-bluebonn.livejournal.com]

Hilary is my sister-in-law, lol.

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought about that. I wrote about her a long time ago, before I knew about the popularity of names. I'm kind of thinking that it should be a family name, like a last name that got lost a few generations back or something. Would it be better if I spelled it Reilly?

[tryyingtoevolve.livejournal.com]

No, because people are still going to get hung up on that. I'm a creative writing major, and trust me, when people use names that don't fit the character, due to generational gaps in the names (like this one) or it just not fitting the ethnicity (a girl in my class used Hispanic names like Jose on Asian characters and we were like, wtf?), it totally distracts from the reading. And I'm thinking it's going to be easier to do "edit>>replace" on Word and change the name than it would be to explain the name because it's going to interrupt the flow of the story and make it seem like you just really wanted to use that name.

From one writer to another, take my advice: change the name. Caroline would be better.

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

What if I make her name Caroline Reilly Lastname, and she goes by Reilly because she likes it better (she's a tomboy)?

Come on, that's not nearly as bad as using Jose on an Asian character!

[tryyingtoevolve.livejournal.com]

... Okay. I'll accept that that's okay, because (a) it'll give you another way of showing she's a tom-boy, and (b) it's believable. I can see that.

(Yeah, Jose Jones on a guy who was supposed to be Vietnamese. Best name ever, haha. I loved the girl who wrote it, though. She was Vietnamese and was afraid that people wouldn't be able to pronounce the names she used.)

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

That's hilarious!

I had a Chinese character named Kevin Ching... at least I gave him a last name that fits with his background.

[tryyingtoevolve.livejournal.com]

Well if he's Chinese-American, that'd work. But if he's actually IN China...probably not. Hahaha.

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

Yeah... is Jose Jones Vietnamese-Mexican-American?

[tryyingtoevolve.livejournal.com]

Haha, that's what I wanted to know. And she was like, "No, he's Vietnamese. But when you tried to say the Vietnamese names in my last story, you butchered them, Lindsay." I was like "..." It was pretty funny.

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

Oh and I love your icon. And the one before it.

[tryyingtoevolve.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I like them, too;)

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

And I wrote the story about her when I was in the 8th grade. I didn't know any better then. The name seems to suit her personality a lot and I'm hesitant to change it to something completely different.

[tryyingtoevolve.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I understand that. I have characters that I wanted to change the name for and it didn't really work because it just...became them. But then I've also had ones where I realized the name just wasn't working, and so it was okay, but I know how that is.

I think if it's a family name, and it's her middle name but she goes by it because she's a tomboy, it's okay, because then the explanation won't feel forced and it'll fit with her character. It just seems like a weird name for a girl of that age because nobody in my age group is named Riley, not even boys, but definitely more boys than girls.

[samaside.livejournal.com]

I disagree. I think that if it were a family name from the mother's side - providing that she had no brothers to carry on the line - it would be quite believable. We have an older professor at my school whose a woman but her first name is Farley. I've also met old women named Oscar and Thomas after their fathers because their fathers got tired of not having sons to carry on the name.

Reilly > Riley in this case, though.

[ex-bluebonn.livejournal.com]

I just named a character Robert Charles today. His wife is named Patricia Joyce, and they have three daughters named Lisa, Wendy, and Amanda.

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

Those are nice names!

[ex-bluebonn.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[waitingonsunday.livejournal.com]

On Anastasia Rayanne...Anastasia's okay and I love Rayanne, but ANastasia RayANNE seems a little off to me, like naming someone Marianne Rosemary.