NAMING TRIVIA

I was perusing the reviews of some romance novels that I am interested in purchasing when I came across a reader's short rant on the name of the hero. He/she felt that it was too feminine sounding a name for a romance hero, who, after all, is supposed to be tall, dark, and all that encompasses masculinity, even his name.

It was Jocelyn.

His/her rant reminded me of something I found on the internet recently. It is interesting to note the interesting trivia one comes across on the internet. I had recently read a blog post on a romance writers' blog. The author was lamenting the difficulty that she faced in finding names for her characters. Her fellow writer colleagues were all commiserating, and I was surprised that people actually write fan mails to authors to complain about protaganists' names. One would have thought there were better things to do.

One would be surprised at how much consideration the naming process involved, especially for prolific authors who have written a lot. Apparently, one of the important investments of fiction authors are baby naming books, the more the merrier, and spanning different races and cultures. Personal preferences aside, the name had to be easy to remember, easily spelled and pronouced (no Scandinavian names), suitable for the time period of the novel (no hippie names for regency romances), and of the correct gender.

One would think that the last requirement would be the easiest to fulfil. I mean, it is easy enough to remember not to name a hero Jane or Mary. But apparently, the author who wrote the blog post I was referring to above, named the hero "Artemis" in one of her novels. She changed it to "Artemas", the male equivalent, only after receiving complaining emails from her readers. I was plenty amused at the anecdote.

One of the points she made in post was also the crossing of genders for certain names. Names like Hilary, Evelyn, and the Jocelyn of the above-mentioned fame were solid English male names once upon a time. Then America happened. And after that, we have the very popular "Cameron" as in "Diaz", "Drew" as in "Barrymore" and sundry others. I can see where the bewilderment sets in then, when trying to give the protagonists nice names without resorting to the common and overused.

Back to the rant. I thought it was very nice of the other reviewers not to snub that particular ranter with regards to the issue on the name. Then again, many people probably had the same thoughts but were too polite to mention them. I certainly would have, if I didn't come across the other blog post first.

Note: The blog I was referring to above is "Running with Quills", and the blog post I was referring to is titled "Jayne and a boy named Sue" by Jayne Ann Krentz, who happens to be one of my favourite authors as well. Read the comments as well to get the whole of the discussion, if it pleases ye.