The Name Game Part 10,035

If you've followed this blog for a while, you know that I do not get to name my characters. They tell me their names, and if I don't like it? Too bad.

Sometimes I get things like: My name starts with an R. And then I'll spend hours combing through baby name websites and books trying to find the right R name. Hours is understating it. It was weeks because this heroine had a name classified as a male name in all but one resource. If I hadn't stumbled across that, I might not know her name yet.

Then there are the characters who are sort of easy. I was walking down the hallway and I heard Mika. And while I had no clue who she was or what story she was from, at least I didn't have to work for her name. (Through a Crimson Veil)

I preface this blog post with all this information because it explains why I am in a tangle with names in my Paladin League series.

If I were picking names, I would have chosen ones that were a lot different from each other so that there would be no confusion. Instead, I have Case (Wicked Suspicion) and Cal (AKA Baggs). I have Iona and Ian (AKA Rusty).

To combat this, after Case's book, he is only referred to as Lurch. His first name is no longer mentioned. There's a book between Case's story and Cal's book, so I'm hoping that helps.

Iona also goes by Io. Ian is Ian. This one is going to be painful. I'm still debating how to handle this. I have one possibly good idea. If Ian was called Rusty by his family the entire time he was growing up, maybe he would think of himself as Rusty and then I wouldn't have the I-name issue.

The thing that's so frustrating to me is I worried that Ayla and Iona were too close. They are twin sisters. I probably couldn't have changed either name, but I might have been able to coax a nickname out of one of them.

I never considered the other books and other characters.

Although, in my defense on this one, Ian was going by Zack when Ayla and Iona made their appearances in my brain. Don't even get me started about the characters who give me the wrong name and then change it on me at the last minute.

Character Names

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. :-)

Yes, the Name Game is Back

There are six books in the second arc of the Paladin League. I thought I had all the names right, but (as it turned out) I was close, but not quite.

It all happened when I started thinking about Baggs' story. I know his heroine, I know her name, and I thought I had Baggs' first name, too. He'd been hard to pin down, but we'd settled on Cullen.

I will admit I had some unease. It felt right, but not right. I know that makes no sense, but it was one of those feelings of I don't think this is right, but I couldn't figure out why I felt that way.

And then I started getting pieces of the story. I heard Baggs and his heroine talking and she wasn't calling him Cullen. She didn't call him Cull.

She called him Cal.

I tried to re-imagine the dialogue and have her use his name. She wouldn't. That's when I knew I'd been right to feel uneasy. His name was not Cullen. It was something that could be shortened to Cal.

It didn't take more than a minute to get the real name. Callum. But everyone calls him Cal, except for his teammates who use his nickname of Baggs.

Mystery solved. That's why I was able to think Cullen was correct, but still feel uneasy. His name was very, very close, but not quite that. The uneasiness is gone now. This is the right name. And thank goodness I hadn't written his first name yet in any of the books.

Callum Baggnell and his heroine are book 4 of 6 in the second Paladin League arc.

The Name Game: Variations

I've blogged before about how particular my characters are about their names. I'm not kidding when I tell you that I can't write them until I have their name. Sometimes they're helpful and let me know up front. Other times, they make me work for it.

One thing I haven't mentioned before is that their particularity goes right down to the spelling of their names.

I have a heroine in a future Paladin League story who was insistent on her spelling.

Her name (with her spelling) is Ayla (pronounced Eye-Lah). The more popular spelling at the moment is Isla. (Same pronunciation.)

I pointed this out to her--that most people are spelling Ayla as Isla, but she was all no, I'm Ayla.

I'm not complaining about this. She shared her name quickly, she was clear on the spelling, and it was done. No fuss, no muss.

The heroine in the book following hers made me work a little harder, but once I got in the right ballpark, she was clear, too. Her name is Iona, not Ione. One is an island off Scotland and the other is a Greek sea nymph. She is an island, not a nymph. ;-)

Iona's hero is the one that had me tearing out my hair. You met him in Deck's story with his nickname. Baggs. I even know his surname. It's Baggnell, but finding his first name was an ordeal that lasted weeks. So many false positives. I'd be certain I had the right name, but a few days later, I'd know I was wrong. It wasn't his name.

Things improved on this front when I realized I had the wrong picture. I always find pictures that represent what the characters look like. I just know when I see it. This time I was wrong. When I found the right picture for Baggs, his first name followed shortly thereafter.

He was the one I was complaining about in the earlier blog posts about the name game, but we're set now.

The Name Game Part 1000

I blogged last week about new characters. Well, dang it, one of the heroes won't settle on a name. Baggs. You met him in Wicked Persuasion. The new medic who replaced Griff on the team.

I've tried out maybe a dozen real first names with Baggs, but he hasn't liked any of them.

Not any of them.

I think--THINK--that it ends in -er. I'm not willing to bet on that because none of those names have stuck.

This isn't the first time I've had a character do this kind of thing to me. I had a heroine who literally had me going through every baby name book I own and every baby name website before we found her name. It's just been a while since a character has made me work this hard.

I'm torn between determination to learn his name, damn the torpedoes, and just letting it be since I don't need his real first name right now and he'll eventually tell me.

It's just that I have a hard time waiting.

Introductions

I've been notebooking on Wicked Suspicion, the next book up in the Paladin League series. While I was working on this, a couple members of the team introduced themselves.

Well, sort of.

If you read Wicked Persuasion (released this August!), you met one of them already. Baggs, the new medic on the team. He replaced Griff since he's in medical school now and no longer on the team.

I thought the second guy was Mazz, who made an appearance in Finn and Zo's book, but that wasn't who he was. Instead, this guy is someone who has been undercover in all the previous books and I never met him before. I like meeting new characters, so this was fun.

Not so fun was the name game which followed.

If you've followed my blog for a while, you know that I don't get to name my characters. They pick their own names. If I'm lucky, they'll actually tell me what it is, like Mika did in Through a Crimson Veil.

I'm rarely that lucky. The name game usually involves me searching baby name websites until the character says "that's me!"

Sometimes it's quick.

The new guy who wasn't Mazz, found his name easily and we were good to go. The problem was Baggs. I thought he picked his name fast and effortlessly, but it didn't sit right and I reluctantly had to admit it was wrong. The only clue I had was I was pretty sure his first name was something Irish.

Then began a lengthy search across multiple sites. I tried out different names, wanting to see if he responded to them or not. I think--think--I have his name now. At least he talked to me when I used it and I didn't have a whole lot of crickets chirping. I'm not prepared, though, to say I'm 100% sure it's really his name. Not yet.

By the way, Case and Nyx were both easy name characters. Neither of them gave me the name, but Nyx was close enough to be nearly effortless. Case and I had a spelling issue to work out with his name, but that resolved itself quickly, too, and we were good to go.

Now they just need to share some more information. Everything I'm getting from them is deep, deep into the book. I'm making notes, but I need them to share the beginning.

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

A while back, I blogged about having two characters show up in my head who had the same name. They were just spelled differently.

At the time, I was surprised because I've never had two characters want the same name. Well, that's over with now. One of the characters--a secondary in the Paladin League--had to introduce himself with his real name, not his handle.

Guess what? He's not Zack with a K like he'd been telling me.

Surprise!

As far as having things sprung on me by my characters, this is minor. I didn't use his real first name in any of the books yet although he's made an appearance in the last three.

The thing that's sort of frustrating for me is what his name actually is: Ian. I had three names that I thought were him and one of them was Ian. No, no, he assures me. I'm Zack.

And then he introduces himself in Wicked Persuasion and guess what? It's Ian. Grrr.

I'm used to characters withholding information, but it's been a long time since I've had one outright lie to me. Now that I know Ian can't be trusted to tell me the truth, I'll be on guard with him. I also plan to torture him mercilessly in his book. Payback, it's real.

One Letter

Last week, I blogged about character names and an author asking if she can reuse names. I mentioned that the question surprised me because I don't get to name my own characters, but I forgot to mention I'm kind of dealing with a similar issue right now.

You see, I have two heroes who have told me their name is Zach/Zack. One spelled with an h and the other spelled with a k.

Since Zach with an h is already started, I tried to convince the other Zack that his name wasn't going to work and he should pick something else. I even offered a few suggestions. He declined.

And because I've written two chapters of Zach's book, it's too late to change his name.

Since they're spelled differently, an argument could be made that they're not the exact same name, but they're pronounced identically. And if I were to have a conversation with someone and talk about Zach/k, they wouldn't be sure which one I meant unless I gave them additional information.

On the plus side, Zack with a k is far enough back in the queue that I have time to work on him. His story would be number three in a second set of four Paladin League books. I'm still writing number four in the first set of four. (No, Zach with an h isn't in this story.)

I'm not going to spend too much time worrying about it yet, but my characters can be pretty stubborn--especially about their names.

Names, Names, Names

The other day on Facebook, I saw an author ask a question about reusing character names in a writers' group. I actually don't know what anyone said to her because I was sitting there amazed that she got a choice about the names.

This isn't the first time I've been dumbstruck by this idea. Authors talk about things like this and occasionally I see the comments, but if it's been a while between postings, I forget.

You see, I do not get to name my characters. They let me know what their names are.

I don't always like their names. I had one character who used subterfuge. He said to just use the name as a placeholder for now. He'd give me a name I liked later. He lied to me. The name I didn't like? It's still his name. (This is an unpublished book that I'd still like to finish some day. It did go out on proposal, but didn't sell.)

Most often, though, the characters just show up in my brain and tell me to browse through name books or name websites until they say that's it!

That happened to me on Friday night. I had a few characters show up on Thursday night--enough heroes for a trilogy--and Friday they had me browsing name sites. One of them has a name that start with a T. I wrote down the one I thought it was and it didn't feel right. Even as I worked on the other guys, I kept looking back at that hero's name. Turns out I was close, but it was Tyler, not Tucker. I told him I already have a character named Tyler. His response? Too bad.

I've had a heroine who announced her presence by saying her name. Mika. And I've had another heroine that made me search for weeks and weeks and weeks until I finally found her name. Ryne. This is normally a boy's name which is why I didn't find it after all the time I spent looking. I finally had a book that listed it in the girls' section and she jumped on it.

So with this history, I sometimes forget that there are authors who get to choose their characters' names. But for all the complaining I do, I'd much rather have things the way they happen for me. I don't have to worry about reusing a character's name because they just don't let me choose.

Driver Nicknames

Does anyone else give nicknames to the cars/drivers that they see regularly during their commute? Is this just me?

It's true. I nickname the drivers I see regularly on my drive to my day job. Maybe it's because I leave so early in the morning and most of my commute is on a highway where there isn't the volume of traffic for most of the way to the freeway. I haven't nicknamed anyone on the freeway.

The first guy I call Cygnet. It's because his license plate starts with CGN. He actually works at Delta Air Lines, too. I've seen him in the parking ramp at work. I haven't seen him on the road much lately and I wonder if he's leaving earlier than usual because I have spotted him getting out of his car in the parking garage as I'm going up the ramp. Cygnet drives really, really slowly and he looks as if he's past retirement age.

Next up is Bumper Sticker Guy. You probably guessed that the rear of his car is covered in bumper stickers. Not only on the bumper, but across the trunk, too. BSG normally gets on the highway about the same time I reach his entrance. I'm not sure if BSG works at Delta or not because he's another slow driver. If he's a little ahead of me, I'm usually passing him.

There's Commander. License plate starts CDR. He drives slower as well, but not as slowly as Cygnet or BSG. Still, I usually end up having to pass him. It's not because I'm racing to work, either. I drive about 5 miles over the speed limit. These three men just drive really slowly.

Then there's the guy in the little blue car. I call him Andretti because he thinks he's a race car driver. The only time I see him is if we get stopped at the same light, because once we get going again, he's way, way in front of me before much time passes.

These are the four main nicknames I have, but there are a couple of other guys on the road that I'm starting to recognize and I'm sure I'll eventually nickname them, too.

Why My Characters Make Me Nuts

Last week I blogged about character names and what kicked off the entire thing was the fact that my heroine in the idea for book 1 had a name that a TV character had messed up for me. Every time I thought of her, this other character would come in and take over. Clearly, this was a huge issue for getting to know this heroine well enough to write her.

I thought we had it all settled. Cool new name with a nickname that was also super cool and added color to her father who is also part of the three book arc. I fought my way through the issues this raised for other characters and it was all good.

My peace lasted three days. Heroine number 1 is back to her original name: Claire.

This is the stuff that makes me insane and why I say my characters insist on torturing me. This is mild compared to some of the things they've pulled on me, but still I wasted a lot of time on the name thing and I'll be wasting a lot more going forward. Why? Because I'm going to have to do a lot of extra work to get to know my heroine and obliterate TV Claire from my head.

I did think about fighting her on this, but that idea didn't last long. I've never won a fight with my characters about their names.

So Claire it is no matter how difficult it makes things for m.

Name Hijinks Continues

My name issues continue. Once the heroine changed her name, her hero was like, this isn't my name either. This is unusual for me because they generally don't let up on me until I do have their names right. I've spent more than a few late nights searching because I hadn't hit on the correct moniker yet. So it was back to the name sites again.

With the first name picked, he decided he wanted the surname that the hero from the second story had. Sigh. Last names are a lot more fluid for me. It's rare for a character to protest any last name I might tag them with, so it wasn't a big deal to give hero 2 a new one.

Problem solved.

Until the next day when I start thinking about the series arc on the van ride to work and realized that hero 1 has a name far too similar to heroine 2. Close enough in sound that it would be horrible when the two of them were on the page together and since the heroine from the second story works for the hero in the first book, they would be on the page together.

Now I have to convince hero 1 that he has to change his name. Heroine 2 was the first of the characters from the three books to have a name and she didn't make me search at all. She told me. That means her name was non-negotiable.

Hero 1 resisted--like I expected. I started looking at names anyway because he had to change it. Luckily, I finally found one that he was willing to accept as his.

But then the last name that he'd appropriated suddenly became wrong again. Argh! So back to searching for surnames. I found one that had potential and hero 2 spoke up and grabbed it. ::sigh:: I searched some more and then I found it. And hero 1 agreed it was perfect. Whew! I think (hope!) that I finally have all the names in place for this three book series idea.

I tell you, I'm simply not used to this much changing and turmoil. What heroine 2 did is much more typical for me. She said: here's my name. Done. I hope next story idea has that kind of easiness again.

Superseded

I had a character name issue crop up that was interesting because it was something I've never dealt with before. Those of you familiar with my blog know that I don't pick my characters' names. They come in and tell me what their names are and I have to deal with it. I used to argue with them and I always lost, so I decided to save the energy.

So this character comes in and her name is Claire. This is normal. It's a nice name. It's all good.

Until it wasn't good. The problem was that every time I thought of Claire, I didn't see my heroine. I saw a character from a television show I used to watch as a college student. Honestly, I couldn't get to know this heroine at all because she was eclipsed by this other fictional woman.

Finally, I had to talk to her and convince her she had to pick a different name. After working our way through quite a few lists of names, she decided on Selah. I breathed a sigh of relief.

That lasted until I updated my Word document with her name and noticed how close it was to another heroine in this series idea. Too close. The other heroine had her name first, so it was back to the website to browse names again. This time she picked a new name rapidly and it's close in sound to Claire, which makes it doubly good since that was her first choice.

She even acquired a childhood nickname in the search and she doesn't like it. :-) You know I'm going to have fun with that.

What's In a Name?

While I was driving from Atlanta to Minneapolis to help my dad with his house, I passed a couple of wineries. One was called Pheasant Hill and I thought, well, that’s nice. But I’m not a wine drinker and so I didn’t really care that much, and while I kind of filed it away in the memory banks, it was more because I was surprised how many wineries there were along my route.

Things changed when I spotted the Purple Toad Winery. I got all excited then because it was such a cool name. I turned to my dad and said we have to get some of that wine. Like I said, I don’t drink wine. It gives me headaches, even the whites.

This experience made me think of book titles.

A clever book title can go a long way to selling a book. There are some super cool titles out there that make me think, Damn, I wish I’d thought of that!

Sadly, I’m terrible at titles. As much as I love Purple Toad Winery, I would never have thought of it while brainstorming. I’m much more likely to come up with Pheasant Hill as a name, particularly if it’s literally on top of a hill with pheasants around.

Maybe someday my brain will improve.

My Top Five Favorite Name Sites

My hero and heroine pretty much never let me choose their names. Out of all the ideas I've had, there's only been one time I've been allowed to pick a name. It ended up being torturous and I told my characters that they can go back to telling me their names. It's easier that way.

But there are times when they give me clues rather than their real name. Case in point was Ryne from In the Midnight Hour who simply said, My name starts with an R. Thanks. I went through about a million R names and all I heard from her was no, that's not it until I was ready to scream. I'd about exhausted all the resources I had when I finally stumbled across Ryne under girls' names. Usually, it's a masculine name.

There are also secondary characters who need names, and since they probably only introduce themselves about 30% of the time, I need naming sites. Here are my favorite sites for searching out character names.

1. Nameberry -- Great lists, lots of unusual names, and community contributors make this one of the first sites I visit when I need a name.
2. Behind the Name -- Again a lot of unusual names from around the world, this site also has a name generator which sometimes comes in handy.
3. 20,000 Names from Around the World -- They have tabs of names from around the world, but my favorite part is where they have names in categories for example Warrior Names, Dragon Names, etc.
4. Fantasy Name Generator --  The generator lets you make choices like long names, short names, consonant heavy names, etc.
5. Baby Name Guide -- Not only sorted into country of origin, they also have categories like Arthurian Legend Names and Mythology Names.

As I'm looking at my list, I realize it's the sites that put names into categories that I like. Not so much the country of origin because that really makes no difference to me, but things like Warrior Names or Arthurian Legend Names really work well for me. Sometimes I just have a sense and these categories help a lot then. Other times, it's just neat to see a group of different names in one place to have a look when I'm absolutely clueless on a secondary character's name.

Names

I always seem to see tweets and retweets to blog posts where other writers talk about character names. And every time I've clicked through, I end up amazed that these authors all mention choosing their characters' names. Am I the only one who doesn't get to pick?

That might sound like a complaint. Believe me, it's not. I'm happy that I don't have to pick character names. The one time I got stuck with that (and it was only one time for one character), it was torturous. How did I know I had the right name for her? What if I chose the wrong one and her character doesn't come alive for me? With these worries, I ended up spending week after week looking at thousands and thousands of names.

But seeing all these blog posts where the authors pick the names just makes me curious. Are there other authors in the same boat as I am? Does anyone else have the character come in and say their name?

With that one exception I mentioned above, this is how it always happens for me. The characters tell me who they are. Oh, sure, sometimes I'll get a vague "My name starts with an R," but they still ultimately say, "yep, that's it" when I finally stumble across the right one. I appreciate that confirmation.

I've had characters choose names that I don't like. I used to argue with them, but I don't any longer. They always get their way and it just wastes time.

That's Luke

The characters demanding my attention right now are not from the story I'm supposed to be writing. Not only are they from another world entirely, but if I did write them, there are around seven other books I'd need to write first. I have them planned out and it would be correct chronologically. None of that seems to matter.

To try to get them to stop bugging me, I started writing one of the scenes they've shown me. I didn't get far before I started looking for pictures of them.

Usually, I need to write two to three chapters before I look for pictures, but I know this couple well already, so I guess that's why it was different. Looking for character images is not normally a lot of fun and it wasn't this time either. I still haven't found the right image for either of them.

I know Cam doesn't have long hair, but I stopped at a picture of a guy with shoulder-length brown hair anyway. If the face is right, I can sometimes manage to find a picture of the model with short hair.

Before I can even get a really good read on his face, though, Cam says, "That doesn't look like me. He looks like Luke."

I'm like Luke? Who the hell is Luke?

My brother, he tells me. Okay. I knew Cam had two younger brothers, but I had never gotten their names. Now I have them name of one more. Luke Brody. I'm guessing this means he has a story, too. :-/

No Arizona

I've talked before about how my characters choose their own names and how I get no say in the matter. I can change their surnames if I need to--they don't seem to be as dead set on those--but first names? No way.

I used to complain about this until I had one heroine who did let me pick her name. It was miserable. I spent weeks and weeks looking at all my name books and at a bazillion online naming sites. After that experience, I conceded. Life is easier if I let them tell me who they are.

And yet I still had this conversation with a heroine of mine recently. Maybe I haven't quite learned my lesson.

Me: You can't go with Arizona. I have another heroine named Phoenix and her story is written. We have to change your name. How about Ariel? It's close to Arizona.

Heroine: I'm not a Disney princess.

Me: That can be part of your internal conflict. Your parents wanted a Disney princess and they got a scientist instead.

Heroine: (silence)

I take her silence as agreement. I envision how this conflict between who she is and who her parents want her to be influences her life and her choices. I start to make notes, but I can't write Ariel. Every time I write her name it comes out as Arizona.

At first I think it's me, not able to mentally make the change yet. Then I see her expression. My name is Arizona, she says.

I sigh and surrender. Arizona it is.

From Idea To Story - Part 2

On Tuesday, I began a series of blogs that will run through how I take an idea and make it into a story. This is my process and it might not work for everyone. It might not even work for me on my next project. The one thing that I've learned is that my process will (and has) changed over the years. Sometimes drastically.

Names: Sunday Feb 26, 2012

People who've followed my blog for a while know my characters pick their own names. I never get a choice, and if I don't like it, they still get their way. I had one hero a few years ago tell me his name and when I tried to encourage him to choose another, he said, Just use this one until we pick a different one. The next thing you know, the name stuck. His heroine's name is the one and only time they've allowed me to pick. It was torturous and I quickly regretted ever complaining about the name thing.

These two taught me my lesson. Now when I don't like it, I just grimace and go Really? Then I say, okay, whatever.

The name for the hero in the new idea showed up in my head with little fanfare. No announcements. No hints. I suddenly just knew. Ivar. I wasn't even sure it was a real name. And yes, I did grimace. Ivar? Really? Whatever. I looked it up and lo and behold, it is a real name. He was adamant on the spelling from the beginning. I argued because the spelling Ivor made more sense for his nationality, but of course, he won.

The heroine's name came a few hours later. Phoenix. I grimaced again because this is on the trendy side. I did another Really? Wouldn't you rather have a different name? They're very stubborn. So I have a hero with a name I don't like and a heroine with a name that's too trendy for my tastes. Okay. Whatever.

Doppleganger?

A couple of weeks ago there was an interesting discussion on one of my writer loops about doing a Google search before finalizing a pen name. The topic came up because a self-published author is using the name of a multi-published with New York author and another small press author was using a name that was nearly identical to another author's romance pseudonym.

The subject than turned to Googling character names. Sometimes I do this, sometimes I don't.

I pretty much have zero leeway on the first names, especially of my hero and heroine. It doesn't matter to them if I don't like the name or not, they tell me who they are and that's that. I've learned to deal with this, and in all honesty, I like it. The one time I was left to choose a name was torturous. Sometimes I still complain about not being the driver's seat, but as soon as I remember how miserable I was when I did have control, I shut up and say never mind.

Surnames, though, I do have some say in. Not always and sometimes not much, but the characters are rarely intractable on this score. And when the last names come too easily, I tend to Google. Sometimes it turns out there is a real person with that name. There was one time my hero's name was identical to someone who was arrested for a high profile crime. I can't help but think that I'd heard that man's name on the news at some point, and when my hero gave me his first name, my subconscious dredged out the felon's name. Needless to say, the hero had his surname changed.

Sometimes the name is completely set and I can't change it no matter what Google turns up. Like Mika Noguchi from Through a Crimson Veil. In the book, Mika makes a joke when Conor searches her name and discovers that Mika Noguchi is an Asian woman's wrestling champ. Why does she do this? Because there really is a Mika Noguchi who's a woman wrestler. This actually led to a running joke through the story.

Checking out a character's name isn't a bad thing, but I doubt there's any name out there that no one in the world has unless it's something totally made-up and bizarre, and even then, who knows? Where does the line get drawn? No, I wouldn't let a character named Brad Pitt loose in a book, but Mika Noguchi? I thought that was okay since there can't be that many of my readers who follow Asian woman's wrestling. In the end, I think it has to come down to a writer's best judgment.