Characters

[George Wilder Jr.]

I have long grown tired of tradtional Characters names, therefore, I began naming my characters after states, cities, towns, villages, and suburbs. I found it to be very interesting. My son is named Denver. I was fed-up with scratching my head over massively trying to come up with various names for individual characters. And I love it.

[Jack Getze]

Waxahachie, Texas might be a good one, George. But not sure if it's a male or female.

[Susan]

I like your idea. Truth be told, I very often troll the obituary pages of my local newspaper, especially for the last names. Somehow or other, the name has to "feel" right to me. I know it when I "hear" it in my head. I just read Jack's reply, tho, re: gender. Yep, it's sorta tough to figure ... Tallahassie sounds a bit feminine ... Dallas? Florida? Not so sure.

[D. C. Hawkins]

The gender bit is troubling me right now. I have a charater that I'm having trouble naming. She is an 80+ year old female that needs an androginous name, right for her age, but mistaken for a male name by most. Just a bit of missdirection for a minor twist. I found that the US Social Security folks surprisingly have a page that helps with the autenticiry part

[ed goldberg]

Jean?
Morgan?
Michael?
All have been used for years as names for both sexes.

[Mary Dee]

I once worked with a woman whose real name was Vaughn. She was always taken for a male by anyone dealing with her paperwork.

[D. C. Hawkins]

I picked Harry, short for Harriet. Harriet was in the top 200 girls names the year of her birth and it fooled my sleuth long enough for the effect I needed. Thanks for the suggestions.

[D K Gaston]

For some unknown reason, I used Hawk to derive my hero's name in XIII. The protagonist is Avery Hudson; the first name came from Avery Brooks, who played Hawk on Spenser for Hire; the last name from a Bruce Willis movie, Hudson Hawk.