Day 3
Please let me know if these are annoying/clogging up your friends page/etc.
3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you're writing about fictional places)?
Since most of my characters come from a British or American colonial background, I thankfully don't have to make up names, which is good because I suck at that kind of thing. Finding names varies a lot depending on the character- some I am able to name immediately while others take forever to find just the right name. Mrs. Forrester and Captain Parker both got their last names from websites of common British surnames, though I agonized over their first names (Lydia and Roger, respectively) until I found something that sounded right and fit them. My MC Edmund and his sister Annie got their last name (Fairfax) from a secondary character in Jane Austen's Emma. Sparkish, my MC's familiar, is actually named after a character in the Restoration play "The Country Wife". Colonel Davenport probably has the most random name origin- she was actually named after a choir director I had in college who was strict enough I decided that naming an army officer after her was appropriate. I'm not sure if she would be flattered. ;-)