If you MUST use the same letter for Reasons, have the shape or length of the word be wildly different. But in general, just try to avoid it. It shouldn’t matter but it does because brains.
Reposted from
James Topham
Have your characters’ names start with different letters
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Ma, Dad, Daddy, Mam, Pap, Papaw, Mamaw, Mom, Popsie, Momsie, and Bob are all different people from different families, of different generations and character.
Like, ooh! #Oathbreakers by @lollardfish.bsky.social and @profgabriele.com - multiple Louis, Charles, and whatnot, but they wrote, helpfully distinguishing folks.
I really appreciate it when authors help the reader out by differentiating the names
Still mad at my parents for not naming my two brothers both Darryl.
I'm surprised it took this long for the quote in the first place.
https://youtu.be/jgYbogp1Ha0?feature=shared
(unless names need to sound/look similar)
See also: d', du, de, and von.
I only know this because I work in databases and my current place of work is *very* old fashioned in some respects.
At parties where both are present, their cups are currently labeled "Married" and "Unmarried".
This will become more difficult if my brother decides to get married.
Not identical twins! I know them apart by looks and personality, but I still muddle their names.
Growing up was confusing.
My dad remarried a woman named Barbara and when my brother married, his wife's name was, you guessed it, Barbara.
My mom is Patty. My Dad's sister: Auntie Patty.
My name is Jeff, my best friend's name is Jeff, and we used to hang out with ANOTHER Jeff. Those two thought it was a great ice-breaker at the bar.
I have 56 first cousins. Some names are bound to be repeated within the family 🤣🤣
(Believe me, it wasn't by choice.)
Twice Bob and Lorraine,
Aunt Chrises the twain…
I'll stop now: I'm losing my voice.
For women, 1600-1799, Elizabeth, Mary, and Anne were 50% and up, except 1650-99 was 46.5%.
E. G. Withycombe, p. xxviii, The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names.
THEY want high Roman numerals.
"And Then There Were (N-One)" by Sarah Pinsker.
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/and-then-there-were-n-one/
Party gathers... and everyone's name begins with "A".
Five As it is, then.
I'm tired. My first thought was "Okay, who is naming characters Aaaaaa and should name them Gaaaa instead?"
I still can’t fully separate them, character-wise, in my mind
I swear to god keeping them apart is so hard.
I'm currently reading #GideonTheNinth and before that it was #TheGoblinEmperor. Both are great books but ARGH.
Luckily, so far, it's been caught for me. (And in one instance, by me.)
I hated myself by the time those 3 books were done.
Family name? Starts with D.
Patriarch's name? D.
His 2 sons? D & D
The 3 sons of the elder? D, D, D.
I think the younger decided not to have kids because it was becoming ridiculous.
We have 6-10 years before we know what will happen with the next generation.
(The most ridiculous thing is that it was in a shortlist for best series ever. The most tragic thing is we never got the Ron Howard/Strazinski film adaptation. )
1) Name Character #1 Evan BUT HAVE NO ONE CALL HIM THAT; have him go by Buck
2) Name Character #2 Eddie
3) Everything’s fine!
4) After SIX YEARS have someone regularly use Evan
Helpfully, larpers tend to have at least one character name that you can use to distinguish them.
[Dr. Seuss image, of Mrs. McCave and her twenty-three sons named Dave]
Is it helped by the facts that
a) one Hrafn is the first-person narrator, and almost never names himself
b) the other Hrafn is the narrator's great-to-the-nth grandfather, only present in diary entries
c) Hiram is Hrafn Jr.'s grandfather?
(genuinely genetic. half of my mom's side of the family has A names, which out of six siblings with twelve kids between them borders on the pathological)
Same name-ness is such a thing for time/region/generations.
Sometimes you really did end up with 3 Jennifer variants in a class.
My eldest kept making friends with girls name Ella while home schooling middle school.
Pratchett did it the best with his Daves and Jocks.
Made going places that required ID as a group fun.
If you're going to repeat, give us Æthelred the second you cowards.
But then you find them unrelated, or members of the family not using it, and it gets complicated again
OTOH, Spanish history, or Japanese sometimes—same person many names
𝕄aria
𝕁ennifer
Which means that if all characters have unique first letters, I can just write "𝕄 should see 𝕁".
Kids, don’t try this at home.
it's bad enough when it's my irish catholic forebears where 6 brothers lived on adjoining farms, age of each's kids could span 20+ years, & they really loved using the same names over and over and over and over.
i don't need it in fic!
I know, I know, it’s historical. But still.