Monday Madness: What's in a Name?

SURPRISE! Another Monday Madness post! And I thought they'd keeled over.

But this post was actually inspired by something mundane and probably not too stimulating that happened over the weekend.

I've had a kitten (orange and white bengal, once with blue eyes, now with gold (which I deduced his eyes changed when he signed his soul away to the devil)) for a couple months now. When I got the kitten, I was assured that it was a female and so promptly named it Buttercup.

Well, it's not female. And while I have no issue in calling a tom "Buttercup," my husband insisted on calling him "Butthead" instead. Since I didn't want our kitten answering to Butthead, I decided that I would come up with a better name for him. Eventually.

You see, just like when I'm musing on names for characters in my stories, I'm usually struck by the perfect name and it just sticks. Most of the time it's coincidence (or a strange streak of luck) that when I begin researching the name it has connotations that I like.

But sometimes I do the opposite: research and then name. This was especially true for my short-story-turned-novel "One Thousand." I wanted the mermaid's name to have dark connotations, so I went to babynameworld.com and typed "dark" in Meaning Search. I saw Achlys, liked the sound of it, and the murdering mermaid was born.

More often than not, however, I go with what my muse whispers. Those names are usually stronger, more genuine. They are the names the characters give themselves. Even Drake's name in DRAGON QUEEN was one of those names that just struck me. He and I snickered at the irony of a dragonslayer named Drake until he revealed to me that he had a BIG secret. And then it was even more ironic. When names reveal themselves, usually magical and intriguing things happen in my stories. It's probably part of me being a pantser. I'm more inspired when I just let things unfold as they will.

And then, sometimes, I get lucky enough that my muse (or subconscious) knows what it's doing and I don't have to do a lot of cleaning up to make things coincide later.

So what about you? Do you put a lot of thought into your names or is it something that just pops into your head?

(P.S. My muse whispered to me that the kitten's new name would be Simba, because he thinks he's the king of the jungle...or at least the Christmas tree.)