WHAT'S IN A NAME...

Greek and other languages - Naming characters and worlds can be a thrill or a headache. Agents and editors don’t necessarily care for complicated, hard to pronounce names with all kinds of wonky characters in them. In Dream Weaver, there are two kinds of Weavers; the Onar Caphar (the good guys, also called Dream Weavers) and the Rephaim (the baddies, also called Nightmare Wraith). Once I decided on what type of immortal I wanted to create I went to my Strong’s Concordance of the Bible and found the Greek words that translated as closely as possible to Dream Weaver. I also used a notated Bible that shared the information about the Greek word for giants, Rephaim, to come up with a name for Wraith. In the second book, Rock Star I used the language translator on Dictionary.com to find out the name of my protagonist’s band; Cuimhnigh which means ‘remember’ in Irish.
The Cemetery - Several character names came from headstones at a local cemetery. I would wander the older sections of graveyard and jot down first and last names from the headstones that caught my attention. Nickolas Benedetti is a combination of two headstones. His wife, Felicia Morrow, is the product of many years of morbid curiosity and a nearly paranormal drawing to one head stone in particular, along with research in the cemetery office. I also discovered some of Nick’s story in this research. At the risk of sounding arrogant, in the hopes that my novels will be a big hit, I changed some of the info on these characters so they couldn’t be too easily found. “Felicia” and I have been buds for most of my life, despite that she’s been dead for nearly a 100 years.
Plain Ole Imagination - My oldest daughter’s name is Aundraic. Not sure how I came up with it and it’s been the bane of her existence all her life. She goes by Leo now…long story. But the name is very unique. With my protagonist, Emari, I was just messing around with names for her and there it was. Only later did I realize that Emari is my own middle name rearranged. Totally unintentional. When I named her puppy, Eddyson, I was thinking of a variation for Edison, as in Thomas Edison. Again, only later did I discover I had named the dog as a combination of my daughter’s beloved pup, Eddy, and my own beagle, Dyson. Oops. Still cool though.