What's in a Name? Vowels, Apparently.
. . . Who knew?
I just realized something completely random and a little odd. Counting the heroine of the novel on which I'm currently working (14,000 words in!), I've written four female characters who are the protagonists and viewpoint characters of their respective novels. And, by coincidence, each of their names contains both the letter A and the letter I.
It's not as if their names are similar. Seriah was the POV character of my first novel, Guardian to the Prince; Allison is the heroine of Dragons Over London; Claire stars in The Dogwatchers; and my current work centers on a girl named Sanji.
Allison lives in the modern-day USA. While all the others inhabit the same fantasy world, they're not citizens of the same country. Indeed, Sanji lives on a different continent from the other two.
A quick rundown of my secondary and supporting female characters seems to indicate that only a third to half of them have this letter combo in their names. (Still seems like kind of a lot to me.) I've only written two male protagonists/POV characters in my novels, so I can't really analyze them. They do not, however, follow the A-and-I pattern.
It's a silly observation, I know. I think it's kind of neat, though, considering that it was entirely unintentional and that the names are so different. The A and I don't sound the same in any two of them!
The funny thing is that, while this has been totally coincidental so far, my having noticed it means that, on some level, whether I do it again will probably be a conscious choice. Sure, I might forget, or I might be drawn to a particular name so strongly that I would have chosen it regardless, but chances are I won't be able to claim again that I didn't even think about it.
Anything like this ever happen to any of you guys?
I just realized something completely random and a little odd. Counting the heroine of the novel on which I'm currently working (14,000 words in!), I've written four female characters who are the protagonists and viewpoint characters of their respective novels. And, by coincidence, each of their names contains both the letter A and the letter I.
It's not as if their names are similar. Seriah was the POV character of my first novel, Guardian to the Prince; Allison is the heroine of Dragons Over London; Claire stars in The Dogwatchers; and my current work centers on a girl named Sanji.
Allison lives in the modern-day USA. While all the others inhabit the same fantasy world, they're not citizens of the same country. Indeed, Sanji lives on a different continent from the other two.
A quick rundown of my secondary and supporting female characters seems to indicate that only a third to half of them have this letter combo in their names. (Still seems like kind of a lot to me.) I've only written two male protagonists/POV characters in my novels, so I can't really analyze them. They do not, however, follow the A-and-I pattern.
It's a silly observation, I know. I think it's kind of neat, though, considering that it was entirely unintentional and that the names are so different. The A and I don't sound the same in any two of them!
The funny thing is that, while this has been totally coincidental so far, my having noticed it means that, on some level, whether I do it again will probably be a conscious choice. Sure, I might forget, or I might be drawn to a particular name so strongly that I would have chosen it regardless, but chances are I won't be able to claim again that I didn't even think about it.
Anything like this ever happen to any of you guys?