names

I like to give my characters, my main characters, names that mean something and that are usually pretty unique. I think that when used correctly, this makes the character even more memorable. Although, when does that uniqueness and meaning pass into something that actually places more distance between the reader and the character?

For my current novel, my main character was initially named Salome Braquemond. Salome is a Hebrew name that means "peace," which was central to Salome's metamorphosis in the novel. However, the people who've had a chance to read it so far kept asking what it meant or how to pronounce, and let me know that they felt no connection. Granted, I thought this was a relatively common name seeing as how it's in the Bible. I haven't even really read the Bible and knew of the name.

Turns out it's not so common.

So I tried Zoë. It means "life." But every time I worked on editing, the name just didn't click. It didn't feel right. Perhaps knowing that I knew about five people with a dog with that name may have had something to do with it. Regardless, I've changed the name again to Sophie. Sophie means "wisdom," coming from Greek. So...we've gone from Salome, to Zoë, to Sophie. Peace to Life to Wisdom.

Sophie seems to work. I've told those people who have either read an earlier draft or more recent chapters and they're like "oh?! Sophie, I like that."

So it seems we have a name. But I think this just reiterates the importance of naming. As a writer, you want them to be really memorable (as it helps keep your book memorable) but you can't make them so 'memorable' that you distance your reader.