Overthinking: Names

The human co-protagonist in Tales of Mundus, Leon, has been part of my imagination since 2003. He originally had a long and complicated fantasy name, but nobody but Dad and I could pronounce it right. Picking a new name should have been simple...

...of course I over-thought the whole process.

In genre fiction, names are a two edged sword. It cues the reader into the world type. Gandalf the Grey is a title as much as a name. It fits in a world of descriptive names and foreign languages. Mundus is not high fantasy – I needed something a bit more causal.

On the other hand, I didn't want a diminutive like Tim, Will, etc. or worse something that could turn into a nickname. Timmy the wizard sounds like a preteen boy running wild around the castle with the royal children. That just wouldn't do.

I also didn't want a name that symbolized something weird. Every name has roots in real words. Loren comes from Lorene which tracks back to the Latin word for the laurel tree. There's also cultural baggage with names. Consider about the surname Lear. Most of my generation will either think about King Lear from the play or Learjet the airplane makers.

All this factoids and names requirements made quite the mess out of my notes. For a while, Leon didn't have a 'name.' I just thought of him as wizard-who-needs-a-new-name. (It was very awkward to talk about my projects during those days.)

Finally, I went with my gut and used my dad's middle name, Leon. Surprising, it passed all my tests. Leon is not overly common or formal. It's suitable for a grown man in most cultures. If you break it down it's either a translation of 'lion' or a variant of of Leonidas. (I only though about the Greek version because of all the legends I read.)

Most importantly, people can pronounce it right.