fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4904 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4904 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Aldnoah.Zero]

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[The Big Flower Fight]

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[Fuller House]

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[Carol Baskin, Tiger King]

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[The Great]

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[Legend of the White Snake]

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[Thief]

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[YouTuber Myka Stauffer]

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[Kamen Rider Den-O]

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11.

[Descendants of Darkness]

Notes:

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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I feel like it's an unspoken rule of fiction that no two characters have the same first name, but how do you manage this when you have a massive amount of characters?

I'm writing a story somewhat based on some real events, and there were a TON of people involved. I've tried to come up with unique names for all of them, but it just doesn't seem realistic that there wouldn't be at least a couple repeating names when you're talking about a large group. I don't want it to be confusing, though, and some of them don't play a huge role in the story. They might only be mentioned a couple times and then aren't brought up again, so I'm wondering if I should even bother giving them a name in that case. Just describe their role in the story, and move on. "Her husband's lawyer" or "the man who murdered John's mother" or "the psychologist", for example.

Thinking about it now, it seems obvious that that's a much better way to go than naming every person that's even peripherally involved, but I'm curious what you guys think.

I think if the name naturally comes up (What do you think his chances are in court, Ted?), then of course, use a name. But otherwise, sure, you don't need to name everyone, especially if they don't really have much of a role and/or aren't spoken about in more than a passing way.

Just be careful not to do *too* much of the 'Not good,' her husband's lawyer said' stuff. That can get tedious.

If you do want to repeat a name, you could give one a unique nickname or maybe everyone addresses them by a title or their last name. In high school we had a lot of guys named Matt and we referred to them by their last names to avoid confusion.

I played an adventure game with lots of routes and something like 30 characters that were important enough to have names, and none of them had the same name. It was set in the real world in modern day too, so you could tell they were really trying to think of normal person names and couldn't just make up fantasy names. It drove me crazy. It's fine to give more than one character the same name. Just do it.

It's fine to give more than one character the same name, especially if there's loads of characters. GRRM uses this tactic a lot, because he has a ton of characters and they live in a time where naming conventions in-universe are fairly conventional. It's entertaining to see how people deal with 10+ people in the same extended family called Walder, because they all wanted to curry favour with the Patriarch who has that name. They give them all interesting or funny nicknames, which is exactly how it works in real life.

I think for very peripheral roles, though, not naming the character is fine too - if they're only mentioned once and have no consequence to the story. One thing you can do is to try reading it out loud or speaking your own dialogue between characters and see how natural it sounds. If shoehorning a name in sounds weird, it's probably unnecessary.

It’s a shame we can’t run grade-schoool logic. John B, John C, Girl-Sam, Audrey-friends-with-Becca, not Audrey-friends-with-Linsdsay (the one with the braids, not redhead Lindsey).

I wouldn’t go too far with the “The Man Who Sold The Cow to the Middle-Aged Women with the Purple Handbag” stuff. If you’re going to have repeat names, just do what people do in real life and nickname ‘em. I remember we had 3 Josephs in our friend circle at one point - Big Joe, Little Joe and Smitty.

I don't know where this is set but if it works with the culture? Last names. Use last names until you need to show intimacy between characters. Her husband's lawyer can be Mr./Ms. Watter, the psychologist can be Dr. Rickens, you don't need a first name for those.

My memory sucks right now (thanks, meds) so when I read a novel-length work I have to keep notes about the characters. It is hard to keep track in historical fiction because a lot of the characters based on real life people do have the same first name. (Hilary Mantel is hell for me to read. (But worth it.))

Most people don't have my issue, but I'm putting in a vote for your not naming people unless they have more than a passing role, and for using unique names or nicknames for the characters that do.

[ SECRET POST #4904 ]

Writing question

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