What Inspired Your Character’s Name?

[Audrey Beauchamp]

Somehow I think I got lazier with names and yet also spent more time agonising.

Spoiler

Miranda Dawes - It was a name tossed around in my head for ages, then when she showed up on a drive home I married them up, made her dad a English literature lecturer with a love of Shakespeare, then she got Sophia as a middle name from her history nerd mum. I knew I wanted something literary for her surname too, but not as overtly classical as some of my others, so I ended up with Dawes, after Rufus Dawes from For The Term Of His Natural Life. I did consider a couple of other Shakespearean heroines but Miranda felt the most fitting.

Hadrian Murphy - I got very much stuck on the 'classic Roman names common in the magical world' but for some reason Murphy just stuck. I also considered some of the virtue names after the Spam discussion but classical Roman just felt like it fit more. Literally just 'it fit the vibe'.

Michael Watson - I touched on this before but I retooled his birthday a bit to land on Michaelmas, and originally was named for the archangel. (He's pretty glad it's not Uriel). His middle name, Erasmus, was to be something a bit more wizardy and old fashioned to counter his fairly generic muggle name. Watson just also was one of those 'feels about right' choices.

I have a google doc with my characters listed, it's badly maintained and mostly exists for me to try and keep track of PBs because I always forget. But I do have a list of names to maybe use, as well as characters I need to make (usually me brainstorming and not being 100% ready to commit to them yet).

 

[Rosalind Montgomery]

Reviving this because I have a couple of new characters since I last did this!

Spoiler

Ivara Caldwell - I can't remember where Ivara came from, I think I was just browsing name sites or using random generators which I sometimes do. So there isn't an exciting reason behind this one - I just found the name and thought, oh I like that, it's strong-sounding yet feminine.

Natsuko Hirano - 'Natsu' means summer, 'ko' means child or daughter. So her name means Summer child or daughter of Summer. I really wanted something that fitted her cheery disposition. Hirano means 'flat field' technically, but I know that 'hi' can mean 'sun' or 'fire' as well and even though that isn't what Hirano means in terms of Kanji*, part of me leaned into it. (Pretty sure it originally came from me just looking through Japanese surnames on wikipedia or something, you know, normal things).

*if you don't know a lot about Japanese, one of the alphabets is called Kanji, which is a more representative sort of an alphabet. Each character represents a concept or thing, and combinations of these can create new meanings. In consequence, even though 'hi' is pronounced the same in 'Hirano' as it is in the words for fire and sun, it isn't written the same. So 'Hirano' is spelt '平野' but 'hi', if it means fire is written '火' or if it means sun is written '日'. If that doesn't make sense, I'm sorry, it's hard to explain. Technically, it's 'Hira' and 'no' (the way the two characters are read) so it's got nothing at all to do with 'hi' but I made the association so it counts.

Next year's student:

Tui Blenheim - Aroha and Hēmi's younger sister. I changed her name from Māhina because I did a whole revamp of her character and decided she needed a new name too. Should technically be spelled Tūī but I don't feel like having her character name be Tuuii because I just don't like it (double vowel problems lol). Anyway, Tūī is a type of bird here in Aotearoa with a very unique bird call. I find it beautiful personally, having grown up with it. You can find an example here. (You'll find they'll have dialects and tūī from different areas do different variations so if you come here and one sounds different - yeah, that's why).

(The ones I have upcoming beyond that I'm not 100% sold on their names yet).

 

[Aine Thompson]

Looking back on the thread and I'm amused where I see I'd about 99% committed to Cecilia for who would eventually be Laura. How ideas change.

I also love how fitting Natsuko is as name for her! I also really enjoy learning the different Te Reo names and what they mean.

Couple of recent ones (procrastination ahoy):

Spoiler

Ignatius Wolffort: I wanted a very pretentious sounding name for a pretentious boy I made on a whim. I did build a little collection of names to use, particularly Roman names for the general teeming. Wolffort I pulled straight from Triangle Strategy.

Tarquin Argentum: I wanted an even more pretentious and made up name for this boy I have utterly neglected, sorry kid. Tarquin was from my wizardy name bank and Argentum is because I wanted something that sounded regal and calling to mind something valuable, in this case silver. Not too classy but still worth something. His real name is both a pun and a direct contrast to the silver of his surname: Eustace Copperpot. That's right, his parents deemed him useless. And so did I when I failed to write him.

Laura Zavaglia: She actually went through many names until I settled. I knew she wouldn't keep the Irish first name thing but she does have an Irish middle name for appeasing her grandmother (Aine's mother). In the end I just got stuck on wanting her to have a surname at the end of the alphabet, and then on the initials. Then settled on an Italian origin surname and the pieces fell together for her footballer dad who isn't in the picture. It being 'to patch together in order to confuse' felt fitting for a girl who now has to patch together various facets of her life and is entirely overwhelmed by how to proceed!

Emilia Carpenter: came mostly prenamed but I did pick Emilia because I thought it was pretty and because Ellie Carpenter plays soccer for Australia and I didn't want the confusion. I decided on her middle name being Marianne because it was on my list and because her mother loves to read. With the Bridgerton/Regency era inspiration and with her personality I thought Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility was a good reference to nod to!