Changing a Character’s Name

I’ve gotten nearly 90K words into my story and I had a change of heart. I had to change the name of a secondary character because it just wasn’t working. Part of it was that I hadn’t considered her last name. How dumb is that? Luckily, it’s going easier this time around.  The last time I did this in a story, I struggled forever. In fact, I’m still struggling with that change, the character’s old name popping into my head when I tell people about my novel. It’s crazy how ingrained these names become.

One tool that helped me a lot this time was the Baby Name Explorer on babycenter. I love the way you can search for similar sounding names, suggested names, and sibling names. The tool took me to a few names that I never would have gone to on my own.

The funny thing is, when I told my daughter that I was changing the little girl’s name in my book from Reese to Brooke, she told me, “That’s my character’s name in my story.” Like mother like daughter, I guess.