{"id":11459,"date":"2015-07-06T14:58:27","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T18:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=11459"},"modified":"2015-07-06T14:58:27","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T18:58:27","slug":"diverting-project-lets-name-some-fictional-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2015\/07\/06\/diverting-project-lets-name-some-fictional-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"Diverting Project: Let’s Name Some Fictional Characters!"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I am starting work on a new writing project and I need some help with the names. The main characters are the Winters sisters. The oldest 2 are identical twins and I am calling them Cora and Rose, short for Coraline Elizabeth (I think Elizabeth but not 100% on it) and Rosalind Something. The little sister is Lucy Short For Something Some Middle Name. The dad is…I’m not sure. Pipe smoking tweed wearing philosophy professor. I’m thinking about Neil as Neille was my dad’s middle name but I;m not sure and I don’t want the dads name to also have 4 letters, just the sisters. Also, the mother. I really need help with the mother. She’s meant to be closed off, rather inscrutable to her daughters, a bit cold, but a woman trying her best. I feel like some sort of Highbrow Name would work best but everything I’ve come up with seems not quite right or it has associations for me that I do not want to pass along to the character–Margaret, Judith, Janet, Alexandra, Catherine, Charlotte…<\/p>\n

if you have any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think for me the time period makes the most difference. But without knowing that, I can still give an opinion: for the parents, I would look one generation earlier than Coraline\/Rosalind\/Lucy, whenever we think those names are from: maybe modern, maybe old-timey. Coraline is difficult: I don’t know much about it, but I think of it as recent. And yet it SOUNDS old, because of the Cora and Coral and Caroline elements. Rosalind hasn’t spiked enough to be tied strongly to a particular generation; it sounds old-timey to me, yet ready for a revival soon.<\/p>\n

For Lucy, Lucinda seems like the better long form with those sister names. If they’d written to me, I might have pointed out the repeating -ind- sounds in Rosalind and Lucinda, but on the other hand that’s a nice way to help tie the three sister names together; and the parents don’t seem to mind repeating sounds, since they went with two -alin- names for the twins.<\/p>\n

Lucille or Lucia might also work, but it has less of the Right Sound to me. That is, I wouldn’t expect the parents of Coraline and Rosalind to choose Lucille or Lucia.<\/p>\n

For middle names, I’d expect Rosalind to have a long classic name similar to Elizabeth, since the parents clearly like coordination. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see something like Isabella, though that doesn’t really work with either first name. Maybe Amelia: Rosalind Amelia and Coraline Elizabeth; but then her initials spell RAW. Maybe Victoria, for coordinated royalty. Rosalind Victoria and Coraline Elizabeth. I like that best.<\/p>\n

Lucy’s middle is too hard to pick at this stage, but would be easier once her first name and her sisters’ middle names were settled. One thing to decide is this: are their parents the sort who would coordinate the twins’ names but not be too finicky about coordinating the third daughter’s name, and\/or want to AVOID coordinating her name with the twins’ names? or are they the sort who would stick to their established pattern?<\/p>\n

If the dad is the professor type, I might expect to see some educated\/literature names: Cordelia, Beatrix, Miranda, Octavia, Imogen, Cressida.<\/p>\n

If you’re looking for something similar to Neil but not four letters, I’d be thinking along these lines:<\/p>\n

Allen
\nBernard
\nCharles
\nDaniel
\nEdward
\nFrancis
\nGlenn
\nHarris
\nLewis
\nMartin
\nPhilip
\nRichard
\nRoger
\nRussell
\nWarren<\/p>\n

I’m not sure about the ones that end in -s like the surname. Francis Winters? Charles Winters?<\/p>\n

For the mother, it’s hard for me to picture someone inscrutable, cold, closed-off, with a very plain classic name, giving such fancy names to her daughters. I might want to have a reason for that in the story: either it’s her husband’s influence, or she always disliked her plain name, or she’s using family names, or she became cold\/inscrutable later on, after becoming disillusioned from earlier romantic ideals.<\/p>\n

Some names similar to Neil, but for the wife:<\/p>\n

Ann
\nBeverly
\nConstance
\nDiane
\nDorothy
\nFrances
\nHelen
\nJean
\nJoan
\nLorraine
\nLydia
\nMarilyn
\nMary
\nPhyllis
\nRuth<\/p>\n

I could also see her naming her first daughter after herself, either first name or middle. So perhaps her name is one of the four names used for the twins. Or perhaps one name is a variation on hers: perhaps her name is Rose (though not if her daughter is going to be called Rose), or Eliza. Or perhaps her name is Belinda, and that’s why she has an -ind- in all three daughters’ names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I am starting work on a new writing project and I need some help with the names. The main characters are the Winters sisters. The oldest 2 are identical twins and I am calling them Cora and Rose, short for Coraline Elizabeth (I think Elizabeth but not 100% on it) and Rosalind Something. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2YP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11460,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11459\/revisions\/11460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}