Morning, Everyone.
Got a quick inquiry for ya’ll. My friend and I are in the process of naming a bunch of characters we were talking about, and then I paused. It made me think back on all the stories I’ve read. About characters I love and adore, in traditional fiction and in Interactive Fiction.
And then I started to think. Names.
In a lot of stories, we have names that are unique. Ones that are difficult to find outside of fiction, created by the authors themselves. Then there are characters who use more common names.
And then I remember playing a game that gave me a warning about naming a character that had the same name as an NPC in the story, which made me pause. Which is what I want to talk about.
I understand the desire to have a unique name, to ensure names are different enough to not confuse the reader about which character is which. Then I went back and reread a lot of the stories I’ve already read up to this point, and realized, in most cases, the NPCs have names that are distinct enough to not confuse readers. A lot of them start with a different letter, to further ensure one character won’t be confused with another.
Which is awesome, in and of itself.
And in some games, the ROs, who have swappable genders, will have two different names that, in most cases, start with the same letter. Which I assume makes coding easier. And, in most cases, each of the ROs will have names that also start with a different letter. Like in Wayhaven, each of the ROs have two names, and each RO has a name that starts with a different letter.
In the Soul Stone series, two ROs start with an ‘M.’ Maybe a third RO is joining that, if what the second story is suggesting (but I’m not sure).
Naming characters is fascinating, especially if the names have meanings that tie into the story in some way or another. I love creating things, and I adore reading a good story.
However, what I would like to also discuss is people’s thoughts behind naming NPCs. Those who you romance and those you don’t. Growing up, my creative writing teacher always stressed the importance of making sure the spelling of a name, and the way it sounds, are different from one character to another to avoid confusion. Which is something I’ve followed for over a decade.
But is it really necessary? On my end, I’m fine with characters sharing the same first letter of their name as long as the name itself is distinct enough. Like having two characters named Duke and David. As long as it’s clear which one is being addressed, or being interacted with, I’m good.
Even Cat and Kat as two different characters would be okay for me, though I would be curious what’s going on there considering their names sound exactly the same.
What about the rest of you? What do you appreciate when it comes to naming characters? What have you seen done that you liked? That you disliked? Do you prefer all ROs to have names that are obviously different, or are you fine with them having similarities?
Also, what about the reader naming their character a name an NPC already has? Do you think that should be barred entirely? I’ve seen a few games where you had to select a name out of a pre-created list without the option to input a name of your own making. Those were interesting. And if your character does share a name with an NPC, what are ways you think would be cool to address it in the story itself?
Honestly, I played a game once where I intentionally gave my character the same name of an RO, even after being told I was sharing a name with them and was a bit disappointed there wasn’t any kind of dialogue or commentary about having the same name.
Even a, “Hey, we share a name. That’s cool.” would have been nice.
Or a, “Do you have a nickname or shall I go by mine?”
Because I understand the frustration of sharing a name with someone. Went through my childhood sharing my classes at school with four other Brittanys, and rollcall was fun.
“Brittany?”
“Here!” Five of us answered.
So, thoughts?
(And one of them had a surname only a couple of letters away from my own.)