I’m not talking about gems. I’m
talking about characters in children’s books, and the sometimes frustrating
challenge of coming up with names.
I’m writing a children’s book. Originally,
I started with a quick drawing and a short description for a picture book. This
was based on an experience I’d had in Toronto many years ago. Then, when I
started developing my character profiles and drafting my first pages, I
realized I was writing something for slightly older kids, maybe 7 to 9 years
old, and had two main characters rather than just one.
I decided to call them Michael
and Ruby or, rather, Mike and Ruby, as she always shortened his name, which drove him a bit crazy. The working title, Mike
and Ruby, had a nice ring to it. I even had an idea for a follow-up book
called Ruby Goes to School, where she
gets integrated into Mike’s school.
Then a friend pointed out that
there already was a book series about two rabbits, Max and Ruby, by Rosemary Wells. Blast! I was going to have to change
the name of one of my characters.
Okay, I was still set on the name
Ruby, so I thought I would change the name of my boy, Michael. Hmm. What to do.
I wanted something a little bit different and interesting. I decided to make
him Polish, since there are so many Polish people living in Ireland (though I’m
not 100% sure yet that my story is set in Ireland). I queried my Polish friends
for a list of some common Polish boys’ names. Out of that list, I chose Kacper,
but after someone else commented that they didn’t know how to pronounce it, I
changed the spelling to Kasper. Kasper
and Ruby. Sorted!
Not quite. I was reading the Recommended Reading Guide from Children’s Books Ireland and counted at least three newly published books with Ruby as the
name of a main character! Urgh! I still had a problem with my girl’s name. If I
had any doubts, today, a quick search turned up about 16 children’s books with
Ruby in the title!
I chose Ruby because I associate
the name with a spirited, sassy girl who is outgoing and confident. My Ruby is
obsessed with the colour red, to match her name, and even had her wheelchair painted
a sparkly, cherry red, like a roadster.
So I tried to come up with other
names associated with red, like Garnet, Rose, Scarlett, Cerise, Coral, and Cherry.
Hmm, Cherry was a possibility, like Cherry Ames.
But I wanted to
make it a bit more unusual, like some of the names I’d read in other books; I
decided to give her a double-barrelled name: Cherry-Ann. It makes me wonder who she is and
where she’s from to have a name like that. It’s a bit different but
somehow catchy (at least in my own head), and, of 106,000 hits in a search, none seem to be for children's books. Score!
I keep thinking I should change her
name back to Ruby, but today’s search confirms that there are enough Rubys (in
children’s books). And, frankly, Cherry-Ann has as much spirit and sass as the
ruby-est of Rubys.
***
How do you come up with your characters' names and do you ever run into problems?
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