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Re: Please Help Me Name This Character
I think you're way overthinking the naming process here. Just pick a name you would like her to have and that you feel is consistent with the names you already chose for her brother and sister. All the details you've given here are irrelevant to what her name is.
I mean, if I was going to go by the physical description you gave, (I didn't bother clicking the links) I would have said right off, Kurstyn. Because there is a little girl in my daughter's school named this and she is all freckly with the most cartoon-hideous orange curly hair you ever saw. But obviously Kurstyn would not be the kind of name that type of parents would choose for one of their daughters, not when they've got Penelope/Nell and Gratian and maybe Theo already.Just going by her family (and their ethnicity isn't that important either; nobody keeps track of 1/16ths of this and that) I'd say name her Charlotte and call her Charlie.
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I like Charlotte nn Charlie, thanks for the suggestion. :)
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Actually... I know my ancestry down to 1/32nds. (My mom and grandma are very into genealogy.) What bothered me most here is that the fractions don't add up. :-) Of course if you were saying in terms of naming, then no, the 32nds don't matter that much.
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Whoops I was sleepy, ummm what would it be then 1/8th French? Her great great grandpa is fully French marries someone who is wholly First people and their son marries someone who is French what would that make her, 1/16th First People and?
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Great-great grandpa: full-blooded French, gives half to son
Great-great grandma: full-blooded First People, gives half to sonSon (great-grandpa): Half French, half First People, gives a quarter of each to child
Son's wife: full-blooded French, gives half to childGrandparent: Three-quarters French, one-quarter First PeopleCan't finish this without knowing about the other grandparent and the parents...
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I said it in the original post but I think I can figure out the rest on my own. Thank you. :)
Grandfather: Three-quarters French, one-quarter First People
Grandmother: 100% DutchMother: half Dutch, three-eighths French, and one-eighth First People
Father: half Irish and half some amount of English, Scottish, and Welsh.Daughter: one-fourth Dutch, one-fourth Irish, three-sixteenths French, one-sixteenth First People, and one-fourth a mixture of English, Scottish, and Welsh.I'm pretty certain this is correct, thanks once again I haven't done slightly more complicated fractions in forever.
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Yep! No problem, I tend to like word/logic problem-type-things.
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The devil is in the details. This is what I meant by overthinking. That kind of thing really isn't important to the story, the naming of the character or the development of either as you've described them.
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Yeah, I'm just curious when it comes to what the percentiles would be, the percentiles aren't important but it actually is important to know my characters heritage, it may have something important to do with the story, and at the very least it can give the character flavor, for example maybe it is a tradition in her family to make dutch babies for breakfast. I think that the details make characters more realistic as long as you don't over load the details on the readers and dole them out slowly, then they don't drown the story they instead spice it up.Character development is actually something I do a lot of. I haven't done any writing in a while but I play rping games all the time. I approach character development as if they were real people, I try to figure out details about their life so that I can put myself in their shoes to try to understand their perspective, I do this for rping and when I'm acting I like to figure out my characters motivations.Yes I should be careful not to get too mired down in details to the point where I don't actually write but all of this information is important to the character. When it comes to naming her I decided I'd just give you guys all the information about her that I felt might be relevant so you guys can decide which information is important for figuring out her name.I personally name characters based off looks and personality, then I try to make a matching sibset but that's usually because I have the main characters name in my head first then I try to figure out their siblings names if they have siblings. But what happened was I finally stopped being so stubborn and accepted that if I want to write a book that will be marketable then I should try to name my character something that people will view favorably. My main character had a name for a long time but I've decided that it just doesn't work. Her name was going to be Killian Maeve Knight and as much as I like it I really don't think Killian for a girl will be something that people will warm up to even if she had a nn. The other problem was none of the nn's for Killian seemed right to me; Kiki, Kay / K, or KK. Kay was the closest to being right, but then I definitely wouldn't have her older brother be Gratian nn Gray.

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This message was edited 3/27/2013, 2:59 PM

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