A is for Anne , Amanda and Allison……

Published on by mariacatalinaegan

A (2)

What is in a name? That is the theme of Defining Ways A-Z 2015 Challenge. Some of the names will be names from my writing, others from my life, and some, names I simply love.

Best wishes to everyone with the A-Z challenge and a HUGE thanks to those who facilitate it for us .

For the letter A I had to pick three characters from DEFINED BY OTHERS  .  I used the letter A for three first names, In my notes and planning for the book I called them the TRIPLE A’s. The were highcshool friends and that united them  a sort of clique. That  never made it to the book, but the nuance of what they shared as teens resonates throughout the story..

I like to play with names and look up their meanings , I sometimes choose a name because it makes sense in meaning, like a Peaceful gal could be Olivia, but often I chose the name because of the irony, because the character is the absolute opposite.

With my triple A bunch the character AMANDA is bitter, vengeful, and pretty evil yet Amanda means worthy of love, Anne succumbs to Amanda’s manipulation (from the grave) and so she behaves far from the meaning of the name  gracious. Allison means honest and the character I created is anything but.

When you are writing how do you chose the name of your characters?

Comments welcome and again best of luck to all participating in A-Z.

APRIL-CALENDAR [2015] (2)

WHAT IS BLOGGING FROM A-Z

22 thoughts on “A is for Anne , Amanda and Allison……”

  2. oooh! I love this theme 🙂 I always have fun with naming my characters, some just come with their names, others materialize because of a name I loved while others make naming them so so hard. and I always look up the meaning, this aspect of research is more of a guilty pleasure. Thanks for visiting my blog.
    “Haneen/I Will Never Give you Up (479)”

    Like

    Reply

  3. Because I do numerology, I always make sure that the character’s personality fits his or her name according to their numerological energy. For example, if the character is a peacemaker, a good choice for that name would be if it began with a ‘B’ or a ‘T’, as that equals ‘2’ which is diplomatic and peace-loving. I just couldn’t have the character’s name be in opposition to her numerological chart. Happy A to Z-ing!

    Like

    Reply

    1. That is not silly at all, Dan Brown named his main character in the Da Vinci code after the illustrator who made the ILLUMINATI signs, because Angels and Demons was book one with the professor.

      Like

      Reply

  6. Really interesting post, Maria. I’ve never considered using meaning to choose names for characters. I do it more by shape. If a character is angry, or aggressive, I try to make the name hard and angular. Softer shaped names for softies.

    Like

    Reply

  7. I think long and hard about my characters’ names. They really do define who they are. My character, Lara, named herself after a character from a book where my character, Kitty, was given that name by her cheating husband. Losing that nickname is part of her redefining who she is after she kills him.

    Like

    Reply

  8. Yours is a fun way of naming characters! Most of mine seem to be quite happy to name themselves, usually when I don’t want them to or picking ones I didn’t think I’d like. I wrestled for days with both Kirill and Milos before I gave in and let them have their way, while Alex was named as an in-joke with a friend (after one of his characters) and he decided that he didn’t want to be a bit-part. I’ve been stuck with him for about six years now… not bad considering he was supposed to be in one scene and never return.

    -Pax, (currently) 504 on the Blogging A-Z list

    Like

    Reply

    1. I have had characters guide me, I have had to change names as they guide me, but if I have my druthers the meaning in one way or another prevails, ALEX is a powerful name. I went with meaning of name to name my child as well AUSTIN which means MAJESTIC!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment