Article about diverse character names

[Juliana]

I thought this was a thoughtful piece by YA author Sona Charaipotra on naming your diverse characters.

http://www.thedebutanteball.com/playing-the-character-name-game/

Sona is an active member of the We Need Diverse Books movement (#WNDB) as well as a really nice person - she was on a diversity panel at a conference I attended and her upcoming debut sounds awesome for those who like contemporary YA: Black Swan meets Pretty Little Liars.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

This is something I worry about. I hate to have all characters with names like Smith, but I would also hate to name a character Rodriguez and then have her display stereotypical Latina characteristics. I guess a little thought is all it takes.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

We Need Diverse Books movement

Oh dear.

I couldn't see anything clever there. It just seemed pretty obvious and common sense. I do however use a lot of made up names. I hate unpronounceable ones, so I say them out out loud and then get a speech synthesiser to try them in a passage.

Some Victorians used a lot of made up surnames even for non-fantasy. Lots of so called Ethnic people have more ordinary sounding names than some people I know that are British or German.

 

[Warren_Paul]

It is really interesting though how you can take an ethnic name and shorten it into a nickname that is both commonly used and easy to read. Although, doesn't that technically contradict the point of giving them an authentic name that suits their ethnicity?

I think the other trap to avoid is using really common ones. Going with Victoria's Latina stereotype example, whenever I'm reading/watching a crime/military drama and it features a Latina/Latino law enforcement officer or soldier, many times they seem to be either a Cortez, Martinez or Rodriguez, because they sound cool and "authentic." It gets distracting after awhile.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

ethnic name and shorten it into a nickname that is both commonly used and easy to read.

But that is really common, at least in Ireland & UK, since forever.
Not just Asian names.
Of course Chinese often pick English sounding names in addition to their original name.
Asian & African Muslims often have traditional Middle Eastern / Arab / Muslim names.
Asian & African Christians often have traditional English or Bible names.

Western Christians have often chosen Bible names, and some communities quite Jewish variations of these. It's not so common now, but still done quite deliberately by parents.
(Joshua, Samuel, Miriam, Mary, Elisabeth, Sarah, Caleb, Paul, Peter, John and Michael are very popular).

I don't see what the problem is with using really common surnames or first names of particular Ethnicity / Nationality. Put names into Google. If only one hit, or none and it is real name, then avoid it, as the person might sue you arguing you are damaging their reputation. This has happened. If there are 10,000 hits, then it's a really safe name to use.

Changing spelling slightly is unpredictable, unless it fantasy. There is one spelling of an Irish name that is so rare, the Google results are all Indian people (transliteration of Hindi or Sanskrit name) instead of people in Ireland.

 

[DrMclony]

I read that thread title in a bad dracula voice, and it totally changed the meaning...

 

[Denise Tanaka]

This is a fascinating topic. I've learned quite a bit over the years in doing genealogy research and working in immigration law. Names vary so widely by culture, by region, by generations, or within families. Your best course of action is to ask a person of that particularly ethnicity to suggest some common names given some parameters of your character's intended use. If you just Google something, you risk picking something that sounds really wrong or really stupid. You wouldn't mistake a rapier for a gladius, so don't be hasty in plucking a foreign name off the internet. Not everyone from India is named Patel, for example. Given names in Japan tend to go out of fashion with each generation, so you can almost tell the age of someone (or someone's grandmother) just by knowing their first name.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I don't see the problem with using a common ethnic surname, either. It gets pretty silly if you have a lot of Latino/Latina characters and nobody is named Rodriguez or Martinez, too. They are, after all, common ethnic names. They get to be common by being names that lots of people of that ethnicity (and many who aren't, by virtue of marriage or whatever) have. I don't know about Cortez -- that's the name of the town here, and I don't know anybody named Cortez. Ever. Well, besides the guy whose name was taken for the town, and his name was Cortes.

 

[Azraeth]

It is only in the last century or two that people began to divert from the country of their name's origin (barring marriage). I think that as long as it suits your setting and the character is credible, then anything is fine. I find that baby name websites can be useful or, if you have a year of birth for your character, try for "Most popular boy's names 1977", etc.

 

[Hex]

Huh. Well, it turns out that the name I chose for my Malaysian girl character (a very common name in Scotland) is also -- apparently -- the seventh most popular name in Malaysia. If I'd wanted to be right up there, Sophia seems to be the second most popular baby girl's name in Malaysia (and then Alicia). This globalisation thing, huh.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

so don't be hasty in plucking a foreign name off the internet.

Official Chinese Government advice to Chinese people! Honest.