What happens in the Cave doesn't always stay there... Conversations and news from Ellora's Cave Publishing, an erotic romance publisher.
What happens in the Cave doesn't always stay there... Conversations and news from Ellora's Cave Publishing, an erotic romance publisher.
12 comments:
Well, I cleared that one.
;)
Nice graph.
I don't know anybody named 'Hawke' but my neighbors named their boys Hunter and Brock which are very romance-novelish names, non?
My 4 yr old son has 3 kids named 'Cole' at his small preschool.
Perhaps my community is filled with romance readers :)
LOL, Wylie - In the US alot of the minivans and SUVs sport stickers with the family members' names on them. I've seen so many heroes' names I keep thinking of the Meg Ryan line from Sleepless in Seattle - it's like we're raising a generation of cocktail waitresses (or romance novel heroes).
The hero in Liberating Lacey is named Hunter...but there's a darned good reason for it! ;)
Nice graph, Meghan!
I've used Joe. I love that name. If I don't get the right names in my head at the start of a story when I'm writing, it completely throws me.
I wrote a story once where the rich and powerful character's name was Kent Drake. I loved that name!
When I showed the story to a friend, she said, "Kent Drake? Are you freaking kidding me? Kent Drake? Really?"
Go figure.
Wylie, when I was compiling this list, I actually looked at the lists of most popular names from 1970-1980. The funny part is that if you look at the charts for what's popular right now, you end up with all of the romance-novel names! So it's certainly not just your community.
I used Lucius for one of my vampires. Reason was he was inspired by Lucius Malfoy from Harry Potter. Got to love those sexy bad guys.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have chose a different name. Now I see it used all the time.
Love the graph.
I have a couple of Toms, one even in an EC exotika I'm working on. No Joes, though. My late stepfather was a Joe and he died a little too recently to use.
My heros (EC published, edited or subbed)
Ruvane
Etarin (these two are space opera)
Chuck
Seven
Victor
Shane
Robin
John
Matt
Other books have Nick, James, David, Chris, Steven, Nathaniel, Adlai (those last two are a period piece), Jacob, Johnny, Sam and William
I like my names simple and manly.
If I'm setting it in a particular year, I check the baby names given in the year my heroes were born and choose one of the top 20.
Example, if I were writing a 40ish hero today, he'd be a Chris or a John or a David or a Mike. If he was 20 something, he'd be a Joshua or an Andrew or a Kyle or a Ryan.
How funny. My next WIP? The hero's name is Joe. Go figure.
It's good to know that romance novels are affecting the current population in some basic manner. Perhaps romance hero qualities of integrity, courage and commitment will rub off in the process?
The hero of my work in progress is Max. Short for Maximilian. I wanted something pompous (he's British! ;^D ) that could become endearing. As I write I also keep hearing this sound byte of Agent 99 shouting, "Maaaaax!" My heroine needs to shout that at least once during the novel. (Hopefully not as she and he are being spaced. She needs her oxygen so she can save him!)
And of course his last name is Blakeney since he's an (implied) descendant of the Scarlet Pimpernel. "Max Blakeney" sounds like a solid romance hero name to me.
My hero's name in my scifi WIP is Darius, his sidekicks are Tyrian and Eclasius.
Its a great chart, I know when I read books sometimes the names are extremely unique and hard to pronounce. Here are the names of my heroes:
Xander (short for Alexander)
Connor
Chris
Bryce
Gideon
Keegan
I actually know named Keegan, but I didn't know that at the time of writing the book.
Thanks for the graph Meghan
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