Why are names so dang important?

Names… Why are names important? Let me propose a scenario to you. You have just inherited two million dollars from your dear great aunt. You are a responsible person, so you want to investigate ways of preserving and growing your new fortune.

So you walk into a bank and you walk over to the financial advisement center. There are two desks, at each desk sits a man. They are wearing identical suits, have their hair parted similarly, there is little to distinguish one from the other. You walk up to the desks and notice their name plates. One says Billy Bob Honeybottom and the other Theodore Williamson the third. Who’s desk do you go to for advice on investing your new fortune?

Mr. Honeybottom of course.

But everywhere you look in literature, names instill a feeling or even insinuate something about the character.

Let’s use a famous example, Harry Potter. A common name, it is unassuming, almost feels like an underdog, you want to root for him.

From the same series the villain Voldemort, which his name itself sounds dangerous, but also is a French phrase that means “Flight From Death”. For those of you that have read the series you’d agree that his name fits him well.

So names have always been important to me. When writing Death’s Academy I tried to conjure up names that would tell something about each character even before you learned more about them.

My intention was to follow a theme with the Hoodies. They are grim reapers so in my mind they would lean toward the mischievousness, toward the darkness, but not evil.

That’s why I chose names like Midnight, Mal (which is short for Malificent), Obsidian, Demien, and Pandora.

I wanted to have fun with their names and take you into their world and culture.

For the Halos, I wanted pompous, arrogant names that told you right when you met them in the story, that they thought their farts didn’t stink. Which they don’t, they are actually like a nice, mild potpourri.

Brilliance, Lightcrest and Magnificus. You can almost imagine them looing down their perfectly shaped noses at you. And let’s be honest if you ran into a girl named Brilliance, you’d be like.. oh really? Well excuse me for not laying rose petals on the ground before your feet.

That’s why I think names are so important and so much fun to come up with. As soon as I am able to lock in a name for a particular character everything else about them seems to fall into place.

Now I’d better get going, I don’t want to keep Mr. Honeybottom waiting.