Whatever the genesis, naming a character can be a challenge. Here are three common methods:

1. The name is symbolic of an attribute. Jason Quati (from The Sacred Whore) is a derivation of the word quat, meaning small pustule. (Yes, he’s a bad person.) The Adamantine sisters (from Sister Prometheus) get their surname from the hardest of substances, the rock to which Prometheus was affixed according to Greek mythology.

2. The name is a random discovery. I found a picture of a man named “Gerbi”  (from The Life and Home of Gerbi Norberg) in my father’s old files, who was a banker with whom my father worked in the 1950s. 3. The name evolves as the book is written. The main character in my bad side was originally named Sunshine (ugh) and then Francesca, Elle, Ellen, and finally Dee which actually changed ro Deirdre halfway through the book…because that was her name.