Friday 6 April 2012

What's in a [character] Name?

Before I ever started writing, I loved art. When doing exam revision, I'm a 'visual learner' (aka pictures help me more than pnumonics or whatever). This means that reading books is sometimes difficult if one of the characters has a strange name, or one I associate with someone else.


Let me explain. Last week, I read FRACTURE by Megan Miranda. Great book, great characters, but the main character's best friend is called DECKER. I don't know if it's popular in America, but in the UK, 'Decker' = Double Decker Buses and Decker Bars. I couldn't really take him seriously after that.

And then there was the other boy - Troy. Yes, Zac Efron featured heavily in my mind when reading Fracture (not a bad thing, but y'know).



And then I read THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. The main character, Hadley (female) falls in love with Oliver (male). I enjoyed it twice as much because I laughed almost the whole time, even at the unfunny bits. Why? Because there's a pair of beefy 'jock' male twins at my school called...yep, you've guessed it, Hadley and Oliver. Hadley's a rare, but definitely male name, in the UK. An ordinary plane-trip romance became suddenly hilarious, and at least three-quarters of my friends have now read it for the LOLs.

Has anyone else read a book where the names totally change it? Or where you had to stop because the love interest sounded like a carbon copy of your brother (ick)? And what are some of your favourite names in YA fiction, funny or otherwise?

5 comments:

  1. Could not stop laughing or get past a male MC name once. It was "Deuce". I know it was meant as a reference to the card, but here in US it is sometimes used, (specifically by my little brother) as "dropping a deuce" when someone takes a poop. Ew! So gross, and completely juevenile, I know, but I could not take that character seriously, AT ALL. Still laughing...

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  2. Haha wow those are fun. No I haven't had any issues with names, some I'm not as fond of...but don't have a problem reading it. Who knows maybe I'll have one of those fun moments in the future.

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  3. The whole YA name thing is completely out of control. I blogged about it a few weeks back:

    http://angelhorn.com/2012/03/08/a-modest-proposal-to-solve-the-ya-heroheroine-naming-crisis-and-giveaway/

    I couldn't help but see Elder in Across the Universe as a Mormon missionary and therefore a bit of a dweeb.

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  4. Haha! That's hilarious. I haven't had too many problems with weird character names, but there was one book where the author switched the spelling of common names like Jennifer to Zhynefar...that got old really fast.

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