The Name Game

I’ve been so deep into writing Winterblaze that I almost forgot that MOONGLOW will be out in a few weeks! I swear time flies for some things and crawls for others.

So I figured I should talk a little about MOONGLOW.

First up: characters

Strange thing about writing books, one’s editor might have objection to your character’s name. I learned this firsthand when finishing up revisions for MOONGLOW.

In the first draft of MOONGLOW, Ian’s brother was named Faolan. Wait… I think I need to back up just a bit.

Okay, so while this isn’t the most original naming method, I admit than when I pick out character names, I like for them to have some underlying meaning. In Firelight, Archer’s first name, Benjamin, means son of the right hand. I liked this because while Archer’s left hand is changing, presumably toward evil, his right hand remains human “good.”

With MOONGLOW, I was working with lycans and there was no way I was letting that go. Thus the characters in the lycan clan have names that mean wolf.

‘Ranulf’ for instance, means “shield wolf,” which I quite like because it implies that they were protectors.  In MOONGLOW, the Clan Ranulf is honor-bound to protect humans from any werewolf threats.

With Ian, I couldn’t do anything about his non-wolfy name since I gave him his name before I realized he was a lycan. That was Archer’s fault, by the way; he kept calling Ian “pup” and “cur” and I had to wonder what the heck was Ian? Then they fought and Ian referred to the moon giving him strength. And I had my answer. :)

I should add that, when I thought about it, I actually like that Ian’s name has no wolf meaning, for it further isolates him from his clan. But I digress.

Originally, Ian’s brother was named Faolan, which means little wolf. I liked this because I knew the diminutive aspect of his name would drive Ian’s brother nuts. The only problem? Well, for some reason, I thought Faolan was Scottish, but it turns out to be Irish. Dang. No biggie, just google up “wolf names” again and… ah! Cailean. Cailean basically means the same thing: little wolf. And it was used in Scotland as well as Ireland. Done.

Moving on to Ian’s son. Maccon. Now I picked this one early and loved it for one reason: it means son of a wolf. The nerd in me could not resist that.  Done and done. Moving on.

I settled on Conall for Cailean’s lieutenant. Mainly because I was running out of wolf’s names and my nerdy self couldn’t let the whole meaning in a name thing go. But it was all good.

Until the 11^th hour of revisions in which my editor says, “I’m thinking we need to change Cailean’s name. It’s hard to pronounce and it is too confusing when paired with Conall.”

Err…

And when I say “the 11^th hour” I mean it. This conversation occurred at 11:00pm on the night before the manuscript was due to the typesetters. Shit.

So quick change. Fine, Cailean can be Conall –because I was used to a “C” name for him and he’s a bigger character. But then what to call the old Conall? Gah! Again to google. I went with Lyall. Not happy with it because dude didn’t seem like a Lyall but I was under the gun, and it did mean wolf. The other option was Ulf, and just no. So Lyall it is!  The name change issue was solved!

Not quite. My editor also had umbrage with my character Iris. Iris’s name was too close to my use of Isis, who is the symbol of the SOS –a secret organization that I introduce in MOONGLOW. But what to name HER? At this point, I threw out the first name that came to mind: Lena. It worked for me because it is Slavic, which is her heritage so then again: done and done.

What does it mean to you as the reader? Nothing. LOL. Only that you now know that all the lycans are named wolf in some manner and that, in my mind, I still think of Conall as Cailean and Lyall as Conall and Lena as Iris. So please forgive me if I ever call my characters by the wrong names!