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How important is it that you like the names of the main characters in a book?

How important is it that you like the names of the main characters in a book?

Scarlett #questionnaire

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15 Answers

ScarlettQuestion author

For me, it makes the book that much more enjoyable if I feel like the names are appropriate for the characters 🙂

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Angelina

?‍♀️ a good writer has the ability to make the character names fit. ?‍♀️

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Tracey

Not that important to me. As long as I like the character, that’s all I need.

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Corinne

If I don’t like the names I tend on to remember them later but it doesn’t bother me.

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Leigh

It’s not important that I like the names, necessarily, but if the names are really difficult to pronounce, it creates a distance between myself and the character that sometimes detracts from the book for me.

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Nazma

There names are not important for me but their role does

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Carole

A lot of Dickens’ characters’ names are just plain silly and that does put me off.

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Nancy

I don’t like when names are similar. It makes it too confusing. I read books where the story takes place in Iceland. The characters names are very long or hard to pronounce as well as the names of locations. But, I love the books.

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Mike

The only time names really matter to any great extent is if there are characters with similar names in a complicated plot (too hard to keep them separate) or if they are difficult to pronounce or have an unusual pronounciation.

There is a private eye series I really enjoy where a main character has the last name “Reno” but in the first couple of books he tells people that it’s not pronounced like the city in Nevada, “it’s pronounced as in ‘No problemo'”. Which was absolutely no help at all since there are two common ways to (mis)pronounce it: prah-blame-o or prah-blehm-o. Apparently someone made the author aware of the issue because in later books it says pronounced as in ‘Leno’ (which means it’s wren-o).

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Tanya

It isn’t that important to me. However, the only 1 time i was so annoyed by the confusing recurring names that I stopped reading the book was, one hundred years of solitude. The story revolved around 6 generations where men and women of each generation were named the same names respectively. I couldn’t finish the book and haven’t bothered picking up again 5 years down the line ??‍♀️

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Corinne

Not at all.

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ScarlettQuestion author

so true with difficult to remember names….years back I started reading War and Peace, and the first few pages were so full of long, difficult names that I simply couldn’t remember who was who! I am yet to come back to the classic 😀

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Corinne

Russian names are crazy. I’ve been listening to Crime and Punishment and idk how these people even have breath to say them all the time.

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Kallen

I don’t “need” it but when names are just a random amalgamation of letters, it puts me off.

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Nancy

Not important

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