Funnily enough, though, that’s not what I’m writing about
today. When I was in that class, before
my discouragement set in heavily, I used some of my near and dear characters of
the time for one of the assignments. Now,
I still have these characters, though their personalities and stories have
changed dramatically. That’s why this
still bothers me for the silliest of reasons.
The assignment was simple: Write a story of a character
describing their surroundings. I
remember I wrote it in that metallic pink gel pen ink that would turn silver
with pink outlines as it dried. I hated
pink, but that silver stuff was too much fun.
Then, when our draft was done, we had to sit in pairs of 3-4 and pass
our stories to each other for critique.
I honestly don’t remember what the others wrote. Mostly because they were doing a really bad
job in keeping down their voices as they mocked my character names. Then they told me they were too
complicated. It bothered me then, and
like some plague that everyone has from their teenaged years, it sticks with me
to this day.
It never swayed me!
Frankly, I’m unsure how the name ‘Ashira’ is too complicated, but maybe
I’m more intelligent than I thought. Oh,
‘Obayana’ was a hard one for them as well.
Maybe I’m just mispronouncing the names, and am over-simplifying as a
consequence.
When you try to find names for your characters, I don’t
think you should allow yourself to be swayed by someone telling you it’s too
complicated. With our entertainment
spreading out where we have more foreign films, books, games, comics than ever
before, people can handle it.
Hell, in the new Assassin’s Creed video game for the
major consoles, Connor Kenway’s Mohawk name is Ratonhnhaké:ton. We can handle complicated names, and anyone
who tries to tell you different? Just
tell them that you thank them for their input, and then just leave. There’s no reason to be upset and carry it
with you like I have, because you’re smarter than I am, and there’s no reason
to pick a fight, right?
The only real advice I have is: understand
where your names are coming from if you’re specifically choosing names with
cultural meaning. Names are names, and
you may pick a name that you think you’ve made up and later found out is the
name of some highly prized god of a religion, and that’s okay. But if you’re deliberately running a theme
through your names you pick, make sure you research and fully understand what
you’re doing for respect reasons.
Look at it this way: you might find something in the history of
that name that will give you ideas as well!
As long as you do so without totally disrespecting all of China. But that’s an entirely different subject for
a different time!
Don’t let the idea of a name being too
complicated discourage you. Yeah, there’s
a certain finesse you should have when creating a name, but it’s hard to actually
get a character laughed at by the vast majority of people anymore for the
name. The worst thing you can do is have
a character with a ton of names and try to portray that is perfectly okay. That WILL get you and your character laughed
at. Sarah Twilight Janessa Veronica
Sherry Laura Topeka Grayson better get made fun of, or at least get an awful
lot of in-character stares, because normalizing something like that will just
make you look ridiculous.
They even made it a point to do this in
The Fifth Element. Watch it if you’ve
never seen it (and recognize you are still a baby in this world yet) and you’ll
see!
Alright, before this whole thing goes to
Hell in a hand basket more than it already has, I’m going to say peace out!
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