Sally wrote:

Tim wrote: <After all, you could write the piece, and then simply do a search/replace to swap your own name with a different character name before you show it

to

anyone.>

<grin> and that brings us to another point, names. How do people go about picking/creating names, and what do you think of the names used in the actual series? A lot of them are names that are in use now (Anna Grant,

Hal

Mallanby and Lauren, Bellfriar, Carnell, Travis, etc), or slightly changed (Roj, Del, maybe Deeta from Dieter?). Apart from a few flourishes like Servalan - a brilliant invention - and Egrorian, the names given to most

of

the characters are fairly plain ...

I pick names by using versions of existing ones (English or foreign), or by combining parts of other names or words.

I think most of the series names are pretty good. The crew have fairly standard English names with some variant spellings, except for Vila Restal and Soolin. I can't pick what language Vila Restal would come from. It sounds vaguely Spanish. I even thought Finnish, but a Finnish friend said no. Soolin sounds a bit Chinese, or could it be a different spelling of Sue-Lynn? :-) Even Cally is English - an old short form of Caroline (in the same pattern as Sally for Sarah, Tel for Terrence, Molly for Mary etc).

There are some double-ups though. There are two Tarrants, three Dels (one of them a planet, Del Ten). Perhaps Del was a common name then. There are also some very similar pairs which should have been avoided - a Doran and a Dorian (yes, a shameless steal from Oscar Wilde), a Dev and a Deva (perhaps he was really another Tarrant), a Hana and an Anna. And I think there's a Keller and a Keiller.

A thought: were all the Tarrants and their names starting with De meant to be connected? Dev, Del, Deeta. I often wonder if the script writers were planning to spring something on us if there were more seasons...

Nico

...

Most fiction has a degree of self-insertion, if I'm honest, even fan-fic. It's almost impossible to avoid it.

Agreed. Even with characters that have been given to you by the series/film/whatever, you remake them at least partly by the actof writing.

Yeah. As you said in previous post, you can't help but impose some of your own words, phrasing, rhythm, sense of metaphor and so on. It's pretty much unavoidable. The only way to keep an already-existing character absolutely true is by making her a stereotype of herself, and then she comes over as flat and 2-D. A bit of creepage is always unavoidable.

<grin> and that brings us to another point, names. How do people go about picking/creating names

Difficult. Naming is a true art, and not one I'm much good at. I tend to go with full or partial anagrams a lot of the time; helps make sure that the name seems reasonably consistent with the language, 'cos the letter balances stay the same. It can also be a good way of partially mutating real-world names if you stick to generating an anagram from a fairly short first name / surname pair. Of course, sticking to plainish real-world names is always a reliable option!

Tim. -- Imagine there were two of you. Which one would win?

tim@midnight.demon.co.uk

On Sun, Dec 30, 2001 at 10:30:19AM +0000, Sally M wrote:

<grin> and that brings us to another point, names. How do people go about picking/creating names, and what do you think of the names used in the actual series? A lot of them are names that are in use now (Anna Grant, Hal

Picking names in fiction-writing is a conspiracy on the part of the unconscious to send a message to the waking world... or do you really think that Terry Nation *consciously* decided to name multiple characters with names that mean "dark water" or "white water"?

I can't remember all the examples, but... Kerr from Kerry (which in Celtic means "dark") Avon (means "river") Del could be from Delmar (Latin/Old French "of the sea") Tarrant (also means "river") Jenna comes from Jennifer which means "white wave", Blake (old English "black, dark")

Terry isn't the only one who has a fascinating unconcious. Annie Hamilton has done a very interesting analysis of the names in Space: Above and Beyond (unfortunately I don't think it's available on-line).

Kathryn Andersen -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "The way the infection's spreading here, you'll all be dead before you're half way to getting the answer." -- Roj Blake to Dr. Bellfriar (Blake's 7: Killer [B7])

Sally M wrote:

<grin> and that brings us to another point, names. How do people go about picking/creating names, and what do you think of the names used in the actual series? A lot of them are names that are in use now (Anna Grant, Hal Mallanby and Lauren, Bellfriar, Carnell, Travis, etc), or slightly changed (Roj, Del, maybe Deeta from Dieter?). Apart from a few flourishes like Servalan - a brilliant invention - and Egrorian, the names given to most of the characters are fairly plain ...

I found a page online that lists millions of names from different ethnicities and browse through them until I find one that strikes me. I do usually try to keep them at one or two syllables, to keep within the "feel" of the show. The three I used in the fic I'm working on right now are Melita and Lia (for two Seska) and Bay (for a male Auronar). In those cases I looked up one of the canon names and tried to pick names from the same language (Pella and Nina, Cally respectively). They're very minor characters and I didn't want to use anything that called attention to itself.

Jen McGee