Happy Days in Random Chatter 10

[bobtheenchantedone]

I like to keep fiction names and real-life names separate as much as possible. None of my characters are named after people who are currently in my social circle. I have occasionally used a name that belonged to someone I knew who I no longer hung out with, and I have used names that people I met later have had (once a character has a name I usually break my rule rather than change the name), and I have also used names that are nicknames or based off of names of my siblings (but I usually do that when I'm doing some kind of character exercise using personalities that my siblings have). Also, any name used in a novel that has even the slight possibility of being published will never be used for any of my eventual children.

As for actually choosing names, I do own a decently-sized baby name book that I will flip through on occasion. However, actually assigning a name to a character is much more difficult than opening to a page and pointing, or even opening to a page and finding a name I like. I'm one of those writers who sees her characters pretty much as real people, so the process is more like trying to guess the name that someone has already been given. I often find names that I like but can't use because they don't fit the characters I'm trying to name. I have also occasionally come up with characters by choosing a name and then writing about who I think that person would be.

Since there is a wide world of names out there, I often come up with some sort of ramifications to narrow down my search. My most obvious use of this was in one of my past NaNo novels where there were two races; one race were all named classical, often almost old-fashioned names, and the other almost exclusively used nouns for names.

My most recent character that has been difficult to name is my RPG character. I wanted it to be slightly odd, as it is a fantasy RPG, but also not too odd, and it had to fit my character, and of the couple of names I did come up with Marduk vetoed one and the other was too close to my sister's character's name. I finally spent about half an hour flipping through my baby name book, wrote down several names, and ended up with a name that I didn't hate but didn't necessarily love either. Oh well.

[Unit of Energy]

Personally I avoid naming characters after people I know. But basically that's the idea. Classmates, friends of friends, those are fair game. Also you can use the second site I linked above to find the popular names in the US by year. I like to look at those. The popularity by year are easy to find for the top 100, but the Social Security site has the top 1000 names by year readily accessible.

[Digit]

Ha, I was watching NASA TV online waiting for the coverage during Curiosity's landing, and a Kids' show called NASA SCI Files came on. The character "Dr. D." is the former stake president in the stake I used to live in.

[C is for]

Just saw Nanti-SARRM walking down the street.

[Unit of Energy]

Hmm, I sometimes see him around.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

The singles ward told me they were going to transfer my info over by two weeks ago Sunday. They haven't.

[NerdGirl]

I got to suture tonight!!

[yayfulness]

One of the pipes in my house decided to leave us a welcome home gift all over the entire basement floor because it missed us so much. I feel touched.

[mic0]

I really, deeply feel that ebooks should be much less expensive. That is all.

[Zedability]

No, if all ebooks were cheaper, I'd buy too many of them and it would cost me more than if they were expensive

[mic0]

Sigh, I understand, I want all the books, too. It's a sickness. >_>

[Zedability]

When I went to see Dark Knight Rises for the one Board question, I was early, and there was a bookstore next to the theatre, so I bought some books. It was pretty much uncontrollable. And now I've read them all and I'm poorer. Haha.

[bobtheenchantedone]

In my house, a smell in one area often makes its way to every other room. It's most noticeable when one of us cooks something, especially if the something gets burned.

Currently I have reason to believe that one of the dogs did not get let out of the house to poop on time.

[Emiliana]

Guys guys guys, I just moved into my VERY OWN apartment. With NO ROOMMATES. This is a joyous day.

[NerdGirl]

Yay for no roommates!!!!

[Unit of Energy]

I want to do that. But I figure I should pay off my loans first. But I am willing to pay for a private room.

[C is for]

Speaking of private apartments and rooms, I am looking for somewhere to live. Salt Lake area, unfortunately, so not necessarily this crowd.

But if anybody hears of something...that'd be nice. Everything's falling through.

(And it doesn't have to be private or anything. It just reminded me of my own housing search.)

[C is for]

Guys guys guys, I just moved into my VERY OWN apartment. With NO ROOMMATES. This is a joyous day.

Is this the kind of own apartment where you can open it for people that buy you sparkly rings?

[Emiliana]

Guys guys guys, I just moved into my VERY OWN apartment. With NO ROOMMATES. This is a joyous day.

Is this the kind of own apartment where you can open it for people that buy you sparkly rings?

Hehe, yes. The sparkly ring is likely to be coming in October-ish, and the wedding will likely be early next summer, at which point we will attempt to cram both of us into said apartment.

Good luck with your housing search!

[Imogen]

Congrats Emiliana. I love living in my own apartment, mostly because I had never had my own bathroom until I moved in here last year. It's GREAT!