A small confession about character names:
One of my best friends is a fairly popular young adult author. She’s got more than a dozen books out. More than a few fans. She’s got books in every library I’ve ever visited. As you can imagine, she’s used more a few names over the years to fill out her books. Cool names. Tough names. Soft names. Names from exotic locales, and historic names, and the sort of names that top baby name charts. Off-beat names, too.
She uses so many that it’s hard not to overlap, when I’m writing. I don’t go out of my way to avoid it, even. Not with the first draft. I don’t think about it.
Still, draft one of Connection Terminated overlaps on three names. Not for important characters – they’re side characters in both her work and mine – and the characters are nothing alike. They’re not even the same species, let alone the same character type. Still, it bothers me.
You’d think I’d be used to naming a character only to find she’s used the name, but it weirds me out every time.