Sunday, August 9, 2009

The Name Game

So, I have a friend. A fellow historical fiction writer who mainly writes Georgian and Regency romance. She's having a little trouble with picking out names for a few of the female characters in the book. Most especially, the heroine.

I figured I'd help her out by making a long list of names. We brainstormed for a couple of hours, but we did not find the name. Here's a sampling of what I came up with yesterday. It is not quite alphabetical. Please help us and add to this list!

Anne, Annette, Angeline, Alexandra, Babette, Bernice, Beatrice, Charlotte, Cora, Coraline, Caroline, Cassandra, Claire

Delphina, Daphne, Druscilla, Eugenia, Edith, Esmeralda, Emerald, Elspeth, Elaine, Elizabeth/Eliza/Liza, etc Evelyn, Frances, Francesca, Florence, Georgette, Georgina, Georgiana, Genevieve

Hannah, Harriet, Hermione, Honora, Iphegenia, Imogen, Josephine, Jaqueline, Lily, Madeleine, Margaret, Maude, Marion, Millicent, Muriel, Ophelia, Octavia, Olympia, Prudence, Phillipa, Pamela

Regina, Rebecc,a Rowena, (my friend's name is Rachel, so that's a no), Sabine, Sophia, Seraphina, Theodora, Zenia, Zora

This list is by no means exhaustive. I actually had a lot more names, but they were all French and we laughed hysterically over them because the only names I could think of were French names rather than English names.

If you have a list of names appropriate for the Georgian or Regency historical era, please share!

4 comments:

Amber Green said...

http://www.galbithink.org/names.htm

Try this

Amber Green said...

Abigail (watch for the connotations, though!) Ada, Almyra, Amelia, Becky, Charity, Chastity, Constance, Dorothy, Edwina, Eleanora, Ella, Ellie, Emma, Eudora, Fidelia, Hannah, Henrietta, Judith, Lily, Melanie, Rebecca, Sarah, Tamara...

Vivienne Westlake said...

Amber and I were on the money. My friend Rachel is strongly leaning toward Eleanora or Eleanor for the heroine's name. But, we hope that she'll be able to use some of the other names for secondary characters!

Rachel Jameson said...

Thank you guys so much! I've pretty confidently chosen Eleanora as the heroine (still need her name and rank lol) but what a help everyone was here and on twitter and chat!
Definitely have some names for secondary chars, which is great!