I read a blog post on PW yesterday about the titles famous books almost had (The Alternate Titles of Famous Books: Who’s Afraid of Franz Kafka?). And, of course, there are the stories about characters who almost ended up with different names . . . the most famous example being how Scarlett O’Hara’s name was originally Pansy.

I’ve gone though some name changes in my books, too . . .

• In Stand-In Groom (which was originally titled Happy Endings Inc.), the wedding planner’s name started out as Nell—and she had quite a different personality before she became Anne (you can read about my process of changing her name here).
• In the Ransome Trilogy, while William was always William, when I first started trying to figure out what woman would be good enough for him, the first name I settled on was Elizabeth. However, once I discovered her character, that name didn’t fit—and only Julia did. Also, William’s younger sister started out as Sophie . . . before she ever appeared on page. As soon as I wrote her first scene, though, she announced her name was Charlotte. Good thing, too, because of Charles Lott!
• In the first version of Love Remains that I wrote in 2003 (which was my first and only attempt at a category romance, and I still couldn’t get it under 75,000 words), the hero’s name was Kevin, not Bobby, and he was a computer guy, not in law enforcement.
• I dug up my original writeup of the idea for The Art of Romance (which began its life with the working title Cover Model) and discovered that the original names for the characters were Jason and Angie. Hmmm . . . I must have had Angie Harmon and Jason Sehorn on the brain when I wrote that!). Jason then got changed to Bradley Caylor and Angie to Kate Blane. But I still wasn’t connecting with the characters. I’m not sure how many other names I went through before I came up with Dylan Bradley and Caylor Evans, I just remember it took me a really long time to get there.

I’ve mentioned before that I like to comb my family tree for fun/interesting names. Just from main characters, Major, William, Julia, Michael, (Dylan) Bradley, and Caylor are all names from my genealogy (and there are lots of others in the ranks of the secondary characters).

Today, I thought it would be fun for us to come up with some funny/silly character names—and maybe find some hidden gems amongst them! (Don’t feel like you have to do all of them. Pick and choose the ones you want to do, but be sure to include the item number so we know which ones you did.) You may find pen/pencil and paper will be helpful so you don’t have to keep scrolling up and down the page.

1. Your paternal grandmother’s (or grandfather’s) middle name + your maternal grandmother’s (or grandfather’s) middle name (if you know them) + last name of your favorite singer

Grandmothers: Ethel Katherine Martin
Grandfathers: Carroll Reid Martin

2. First name of your favorite actor/actress + your favorite color (or a synonym) + your father’s or grandfather’s first name

Katharine Aubergine David
Karl Perse Crawford

3. (First Name) take the first 3 letters of your first name and add the first 2 letters of your last name; (Last Name) first 2 letters of your mother’s (or grandmother’s) maiden name and add the first 3 letters of the city you were born

Kayda McBat (I used my mom’s maiden name—because my grandmothers’ names would make it Cabat or Brbat, neither of which work as well with Kayda—which could be Katda if I used my full name instead of my nickname. See how many options we can have???)

4. Name of the street you grew up on + a favorite pet’s name + last name of the author of the first book you look at

Valencia Taffy Ingermanson
Capri Princess L’Engle

5. First name of an ancestor (beyond a grandparent, if you can) + City OR State where you currently live + last name of a favorite teacher.

Florinne Nashville Stevens
James Tennessee Bowling

6. First name of the last person who sent you an e-mail + last name of the first person listed in your newsfeed on Facebook

Riley Duvall
Katie Slack
Eric Land (and you can just keep going down the lists!)

7. First name of one of the authors in the top 20 paid/free Kindle Best Sellers + name from the Top Names of the 1880s + last name of one of the singers/word from a group name from this list

Marlen Clara Keys
Colton Edward Prysock

8. First name of someone you went to junior high/middle school with + Name of a constellation

Tonya Boötes
Todd Serpens

9. First name of Best Supporting Actress or Actor Oscar winner + last name of a U.S. President

Miliza Fillmore
Basil Harding

10. Your choice. Share with us your methodology so we can play along, too!