I'm not really sure how to answer your poll because I'm not clear on the name context. Are we talking full name? I would never do that as much because of privacy issues as anything else. But I see no reason to avoid naming a character Sarah, for instance (my best friend's name). For one thing, I like the name a lot, and have for longer than I've known her, and for another, it's not like using the name has to mean that the character is anything like her--after all, there are plenty of other people in the world named Sarah ;) If I knew she was likely to read it, I might ask if she had any objection, and probably explain that the character would or wouldn't be like her in certain ways but that it's no kind of comment on her, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it, or anything.
Mostly, though, my characters tend to tell me what they want to be called. And lemme tell ya, sometimes they pick doozies. I've got a Jerome in the novella I'm working on. I kept trying to come up with something better, but Jerome just wouldn't go away, so...Jerome it is. I've learned better than to fight too much with my characters--they tend to be both insistent and smarter than me.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-09-23 03:08 am (UTC)Mostly, though, my characters tend to tell me what they want to be called. And lemme tell ya, sometimes they pick doozies. I've got a Jerome in the novella I'm working on. I kept trying to come up with something better, but Jerome just wouldn't go away, so...Jerome it is. I've learned better than to fight too much with my characters--they tend to be both insistent and smarter than me.