Character Names:

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Sonsofthepharaohs

Still writing the ancient Egyptian tetralogy
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I write HF, too. It's always important to have appropriate names, but with historicals it's a real necessity.

Yes, especially when your historical period is ancient Egypt ;)

I see a lot of ancient Egyptian novels with anachronistic names because the author has trusted a baby naming site, and not bothered to check the origin (which is usually either inaccurate or incomplete on those sites) or historical prevelance. For instance, Greek names (Cleopatra etc) being used for Middle or New Kingdom novels, which is anything up to 1700 years before the Ptolemaic period. Even bestsellers like Wilbur Smith are guilty of this.

But worse than this, I've even seen Arabic names being used for ancient Egyptian characters.... *facepalm*

Just yesterday, I pulled another name out of thin air. For no good reason, I named a minor character Ophélie. She's really fun for having a bit part, so the fun name fits! Also, I made it a "thing"--I didn't just blithely throw out the name without addressing the fact that it was slightly silly for Georgia in 1858.

I am always wary of the temptation to make a character's name 'special' in any way. I have some leeway with ancient Egypt, because naming really did have massive religious and cultural significance, and people were known by nicknames sometimes more commonly than their birthname. But as soon as I see a character with a name that is out of place or uncommon, and especially when the author draws attention to that fact in order to justify it, I think the author should probably have murdered that particular darling ;)
 
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