Overused Names in YA?

Hah the main characters in my abandoned fantasy novel were Eva and Wren. Good thing I set it aside!

This is an odd real life example, but I'm wondering if we'll start seeing it in YA soon (especially since so many of you are noticing a trend of MCs with bird names): Phoenix.

We had 2 girls named Phoenix at the (quite small) day camp where I work this summer. Neither of them went by a nickname. It looked pretty pretentious to me on paper, but it started to feel pretty normal to say after a while. And I have to say I appreciated that it's not one of those "rhymes with Aidan" names.

But yeah. It is kind of a fine line between so-common-you-forget-who's-who-every-three-pages & so-special-snowflake-that-they-read-ridiculous names. I know some of the names I use are probably annoying to people on both ends of that spectrum. I do consciously try to have a mix, but I know I probably lean a little harder towards the snowflake names because I try to go easy on names shared by people I know in real life, and also because I grew up around a lot of hippies, so my outer limits for what's "too weird" are a ways beyond most people's. (Like, I was honestly puzzled that anybody thought "Apple" was that strange a name when Gweneth Paltrow named her daughter.)

I don't know. "Apple" is just not even a very attractive word to me. If I was going to name a girl after a fruit I'd pick something more melodic like "Nectarine" or something.

Lily. But that name is just everywhere, and very pretty, so I can't blame writers for using it.

My sister is an Eva. It used to be a weird Euro name; what happened?!

I don't love seeing the same names over and over, but Ethan/Evan/Aiden/Emily/Emma really are popular in this generation. It does bug me when I see a teen in a recent book named something like Linda or Rhonda or Perry that today's parents are unlikely to choose.

I've noticed Lark and Wren on the upswing, but didn't know parents were using Phoenix. Wow.

Oh, and Riley and River seem more common in fiction than in real life.

The most overused name in manuscripts I've seen, in any genre, by far, is:

KATE.

caw

I've seen a lot of Eva/Ava/Eve kiddos in real life, but I don't recall a ton in books. Wouldn't be surprised to see more, though.

The main character of my WIP is named Eve! The only Eve variation I've read in recent memory is Evie in The Diviners. I'm actually pretty terrible at remembering character names, though, at least for first person POVs.

I think I prefer overused names to the snowflakey ones. I dunno, I just love a classic.

P.S. someone give me a cookie for resisting the thousand urges to throw in Adam and Eve jokes. SO FAR.

AAH DAMN.

You just reminded me of Evie in The Diviners...my WIP's MC is also called Evie and it's also a historical fantasy.

Should I be concerned?

I'm with all the people who've mentioned the type of names that you've never really seen anywhere else but in print. I just don't find it as relatable when all the names are brand new for me.

I don't care for unique names in real life, so I probably wouldn't use them in my work. My own girls are Tessa and Ella. The main character in my WIP that is with beta readers is Katie, and the LI in it is named Mike. In my current WIP, my character is Beth and the LI is John David. My real name can be pronounced two or three different ways and spelled that many ways, so I always said I was going to give my girls easy names. I think that's where my prejudice against unique names comes in.

I bought a self published book where the MC was named Stephanie, her dog was called Max, her sister was called Shannon and her best friend was called Rose.

Coincidentally, those are the names of the author, her dog, her sister and her friend, as she thanked them in the acknowledgements.

I'm calling self insert on this one.

If you went to school with, or your kids go to school with, about a dozen kids that have the same name you probably shouldn't use that name. My own name (Jennifer) would never be something I'd name a character- I went to school with about 20 others. Bobby, Billy, Chris, Mary- if it sounds generic it is.

I don't think there's anything wrong with using generic names. Thinking about some of my favorite YA characters, there's a James, a Jessica, a Samantha, another James, etc. Those are all common names, but the characters themselves are unique and (in my head) real people. A girl named Everleigh is not inherently more unique than one named Emily. In fact, maybe Everleigh tries to blend in because her name stands out and vice versa.

Yeasayer said:

I don't think there's anything wrong with using generic names.

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There's one thing wrong with it: Too many. You throw out a bunch of James, John, Jim, Jimmy, Jack, Jason, Kate, Kaitlin, Katherine, Jane, Janet, Jeannette, Jean . . . . you're going to get readers throwing out your book, from sheer frustration at keeping them all straight.

caw

blacbird said:

Jeannette,

caw

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Okay that's my name, and I've seen it spelled correctly about 4 times in my life. Is it more popular in other parts of the world?? Everyone even pronounces my name wrong around here. Double N double T triple E


I went to school with a bunch of Cody's. They were distinguiesed by the letter of their last name. It was Cody. A, Cody.B etc.

I was thinking it would be fun to have two characters in a book with the same name, like David.S and David.G
But it would be interesting to see if you could write them both well enough that the readers would distinguish and like them both. Like in 5th grade I never confused the Cody's or the multiple Andrew's

Yeasayer said:

I don't think there's anything wrong with using generic names. Thinking about some of my favorite YA characters, there's a James, a Jessica, a Samantha, another James, etc. Those are all common names, but the characters themselves are unique and (in my head) real people. A girl named Everleigh is not inherently more unique than one named Emily. In fact, maybe Everleigh tries to blend in because her name stands out and vice versa.

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I agree. There's nothing wrong with using common names or unique names. The only thing I try to avoid are names that are too similar within an MS, because as a reader I find that confusing at times.

I do often check the government's listing of most popular names for the same birth year as my characters if I'm struggling for names. But there are trends with names, as with everything. I may have gone to school with 12 Megans, but Megan may not be a popular name amongst my readership. I especially like characters who comment on their names. Maybe they hate it because it's so unique or they hate it because it's so common, etc. (Probably because I've never liked my name. It's unusual but very similar to a common name, so it's rarely pronounced/spelled correctly by strangers, and being a shy person, I hate having to correct people.)

blacbird said:

There's one thing wrong with it: Too many. You throw out a bunch of James, John, Jim, Jimmy, Jack, Jason, Kate, Kaitlin, Katherine, Jane, Janet, Jeannette, Jean . . . . you're going to get readers throwing out your book, from sheer frustration at keeping them all straight.

caw

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Well, yeah. Avoid having multiple characters whose names start with the same letter or are similarly spelled. But other than that, I can't think of a book where I've confused characters because their names were all Top 100 baby names. And if there is confusion about which character is which, I'd say it's more a problem with the writing than the name.

I may not confuse two characters with common names in a book but if I'm trying to remember character names afterwards I actually will have trouble.

The threshold for this however does seem to be very high, though. Probably not the top 100 baby names list but more like the top 20 or 50 I will have trouble remembering. Changing your Michael to a Malcolm and your Catherine to a Candace does not give your characters "crazy" or "overly-unique" names but it actually would help me remember them.

Then again, I am not your metric. Do what you like.

I have a minor character Kate and an Edna called Eddy, and I'm sticking with them to the death. I like to think my Puritan names like Redemption and Patience make up for them.

The only names that bug me are the invented unpronounceable, like Xblc'nnghrchzl, but we can call him "Zib" for short.

RevanWright said:

I see more of it in sci-fi, but names like Kira irk me. You know, those names that try to sound exotic and convey a femme fatal at the same time.
And I've only seen this name in Divergent, but Tris bugs the crap out of me (no offense to any of you actually named Tris). Beatrice is much better.
It's really just the names that try to sound dangerous and mysterious. Kind of removes me from the story.

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It really surprised me when I noticed Tris being used as a trendy girls name in stories (there's also a female singer out there called Tristan Prettyman, I believe).

One of my offline friends is a Tris, but he's a guy (short for Tristan) so it always throws me off and amuses me a bit when I see female characters with that name.

Hmm, for me, girls with flower names seem a bit overused (Lilac, Rose, Lily, Primrose -- uh, is that a flower? -- Daisy, Magnolia, etc.). Guys (male LIs usually) with either Biblical names or names that end in -er also crop up a lot, I'm noticing.

Also agreed about "generic" name overuse leading to confusion or indifference about the story and characters on the reader's part. I try to intersperse them with less conventional names throughout the stuff I write (e.g., there's a Will who interacts with an Ina, Jenna, Em, Anders, Julen, and Yul in one of my stories).

Phaeal said:

The only names that bug me are the invented unpronounceable, like Xblc'nnghrchzl, but we can call him "Zib" for short.

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Oh man, made-up names without a clear pronunciation are a pet peeve of mine. But then, I have a lot of pet peeves regarding made-up languages in general.... (My undergrad is in linguistics! I have too many opinions!!)

matokah said:

It really surprised me when I noticed Tris being used as a trendy girls name in stories (there's also a female singer out there called Tristan Prettyman, I believe).

One of my offline friends is a Tris, but he's a guy (short for Tristan) so it always throws me off and amuses me a bit when I see female characters with that name.

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There's a Tris in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which came out like 6-7 years ago.

Oh man, made-up names without a clear pronunciation are a pet peeve of mine. But then, I have a lot of pet peeves regarding made-up languages in general.... (My undergrad is in linguistics! I have too many opinions!!)

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I like it when difficult to pronounce/unusual names are explained by the MC (like Eye-la, not Iz-la in Isla and the Happily Ever After). This may stem from the fact that I didn't realize Sean and Shawn are pronounced the same until I was embarrassingly old. Like high school.

wampuscat said:

I agree. There's nothing wrong with using common names or unique names. The only thing I try to avoid are names that are too similar within an MS, because as a reader I find that confusing at times.

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I never even thought twice about this until my writing group read my ms and mentioned changing out one of my characters names (Misha, Maisie and Marik).. Misha had to go but I just dropped the M because I still wanted her to have a hard Slovak sounding name.

Definitely dislike the hard to pronounce names. I don't mind working at it a bit, especially if I'm learning something about another culture, but if I have to stop and try to figure out how to pronounce something every time that comes up, I get annoyed!

I also don't like when EVERY character has a unique name. I like a mix. And I prefer characters only have unique names for a reason, like Blue in the Raven Boys. Or Gansey for that matter.

As for my characters, they almost always just come to me. Most of my characters have very regular names: Joshua, Will, Rebecca, Emilio. But I have a few that are a touch different: Nona, Deacon, Tay. And I had an Emilio and an Emil, but a beta suggested changing one. Resisted at first, because of course "they came to me" and I can't change my unconscious creativity, right? But then I got over it and changed Emil to Pavel. He was a minor character anyway.

As for names used too much, Jack and Jake came to mind. I know there are more that I read and think, "Seriously, you again?" but I can't remember right now.

Definitely Jack, John, Alice, Kat, and Bailey.