As I've said before, I like to use different, old-fashioned sounding names for players in my
Amelia Island's Goodbye Lie Trilogy, set in the 1880s in Florida. BUT, they must be universally pronounceable so all readers are thinking the same name as the story unfolds.
I have three new background characters in
Mark of a Man, volume #3 in the series. (Each novel stands alone.)
Juniata- first name of the secretary for the fictional Dunnigan family's Aqua Verdi Passenger Line company. I saw an old graduation announcement from Juniata College near Altoona in Pennsylvania. There is a Juniata river in central Pennsylvania, too. I like the flow of the sound of the four syllables when I say the name.
Jency- first name of a Dunnigan character by marriage. Her involvement promotes much angst from misunderstanding... I recently heard someone talking about their relative by this name. Different and old-timey sounding, I think.
Perpetua- first name of a baby in
Mark of a Man. I changed the baby's original name to this, but won't tell you what that original name was lest I hurt someone's feelings who has that name. I heard Perpetua while watching the History Channel. She was a Christian martyr who died in the Roman Coliseum for not renouncing her faith. While the name carries a rich pedigree, I thought, why not give it to the baby because this saint was, after all, once a baby, too. It's a beautiful name. Here is a link with interesting facts about Saint Perpetua. -
http://saintperpetua.com/Groups/1000004967/Saint_Perpetua/Perpetua_The_Martyr/Perpetua_The_Martyr.aspx
The sources of my characters' names are random. I don't seek the names. They jump to within my hearing and what a joy it is for me as I stop, listen and adopt them into my fictional family of characters.
