Every author has his or her own way of naming characters. For me, the characters often name themselves, but sometimes they tease me, kind of like a game of Rumpelstiltskin. They’ll make me guess. If they’re nice, they might give me hints like, “It starts with B” or, “It’s one syllable.” Then I have to figure it out from there.
This question has come up a lot just recently, so I decided to write a post about it: “How do you name your characters?” I prefer to have my characters introduce themselves. Sometimes they do that right away, meaning I know their name first thing. Sometimes, though, they’re a bit shy about it, and we play a game of Rumpelstiltskin.
My husband and I have been watching The Outsider. No, we haven’t finished it yet. No, I haven’t read the book. And no, I haven’t read any other books featuring the character of Holly Gibney. So I can only go on this sliver of information taken from watching six of the ten episodes. There’s my first disclaimer. My second is