Recently, I was reading some cover copy for books I was thinking about buying. One of them stopped me cold because of the hero's name. I was like, whoa, who names their hero this?
BTW, I'm not going to say any of the names I'm talking about, but I don't think it makes a difference. Also I know someone with this name and I really like him, so....
Anyway, back to the cover copy. The hero's name was something so exceptionally nerdy that I was like, what? Who gives their hero this name?
It would be one thing if the hero is supposed to be a nerd, but in this particular story, he was most definitely not that.
Of course, maybe this author is in a similar situation as I am? I don't get to pick my characters' names. They let me know what their names are. I've talked about this on the blog lots of times. Sometimes it frustrates me. Sometimes they have names I personally do not like. The characters do not care. It's their way or they won't talk, and since I write by listening to them, I spin my wheels until I concede.
I've also seen heroine names that make me batty because they're the too little to live up to. (I wanted to link to a Nameberry list because I saw something like this in their book, Beyond Jennifer and Jason, but apparently they don't have it up on their site.) Examples are like Bambi or Bubbles (because I do not know anyone with these names, nor have I seen anyone name their heroines either name.)
Of course, I like strong heroines. The stronger the heroine, the stronger the hero can be without looking like an Alphahole. I'm not talking about heroines who argue just to show they're "strong." And not heroines who are TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) just to show the hero how strong and independent they are. I mean legitimately strong heroines.
Anyway, this is my long way of saying that names matter and the image names conjure matter, but even though I have no choice about my character names, I always assume other authors do have control. :-)
