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