Andrea Elise or Elise Valentina

Writers' Corner
1

I’m writing an HP fanfiction, and the main character needs a name.
I want to avoid [name]Mary[/name]-[name]Sue[/name] like qualities as much as possible, which is always challenging when your MC is a female OC, but hey. Practice makes perfect. =P

I’m still developing her character a bit, but I have a pretty rounded idea of who she is so far.
[name]General[/name] info:

  • Age: 16, born [name]October[/name] 5th, [name]Libra[/name]
  • Sorted into Slytherin
  • Ethnicity: Mixed; 1) mother is likely to be Greek-Italian, and her father is likely to be Scottish or perhaps Russian
  • [name]Born[/name] in [name]England[/name], but left at the age of 2 to [name]Canada[/name].
  • Wand is [name]Ivy[/name], Hippogriff [name]Talon[/name], her patronus is a frog (currently, it may change to another animal)

Appearance:
5’7, fit but not “slender” persay, naturally tan skin, grey eyes, wavy brown hair that’s about bra-strap length.

Additional info:

Has a cat.
Has 9 year old twin siblings, boy and a girl.
Is very insecure about who she is as a person, and how others perceive her.
Very unsure of many things, and is awful at making decisions.
Has an unhealthy relationship with her mother.
Her parents are supporters of [name]Lord[/name] Voldemort, but her father is far more passive/laidback about it.
Is an observer and thinker, other people’s energies affect hers deeply, spends a lot of time day-dreaming.
She has a rather collected and calm personality, but her mind is all over the place.
A reader, but prefer fiction over non-fiction, loves fairy-tales.
Enjoys losing her senses in nature, preferably in water, such as swimming, running her hand under water, washing her face, taking multiple showers when she’s overly stressed etc.
Favourite colours are cream, blues, greens, some browns.
Favourite season is [name]Autumn[/name]

Questions:

  1. Which name do you think fits her best: [name]Elise[/name] [name]Valentina[/name] or [name]Andrea[/name] [name]Elise[/name]?
    *I pronounced [name]Andrea[/name] - awn-draya in my head
    ** Her mother is a very extravagant kind of woman, she’s rather pretentious and a bit of a social climber/gold-digger in regards to networking. Her father is far more laid back, but a chivilarous type of man who places importance nobility and good manners. This would be reflected in the names they give their children, I believe.

  2. Should her father’s ethnicity be Scottish or Russian?

  • If he’s Scottish, he’d have attended Hogwarts, if he’s Russian he’d have attended Durmstrang.
    It’ll alter his story somewhat, and if she has a Scottish surname I’d probably prefer [name]Elise[/name] [name]Valentina[/name] as her name.
    If she has a Russian surname then I’d probably prefer [name]Andrea[/name] [name]Elise[/name].
    Or do you have any other name suggestions? [name]Both[/name] middle, first, or even last?
  1. Any suggestions to improve her character? She’s open to critiquing and alterations. I’d much appreciate it.

EDIT:
I’ve decided that her father is a Russian half-blood, and that her name is Andrea Valentina.
Also her patronus is now a wolf, after taking many tests online that repeatedly mentioned wolf.

Thanks for all of you brilliant information!

2

Neither [name]Andrea[/name] [name]Elise[/name] nor [name]Elise[/name] [name]Valentina[/name] feels quite right for this character or her background. I guess my number one issue is that neither of these names feels rich enough, if that makes sense. Names in the [name]Harry[/name] [name]Potter[/name] verse always have a rich, multidimensional quality about them. I do love [name]Valentina[/name] but not with [name]Elise[/name]. Her father should be Russian and perhaps even a half-blood. You didn’t mention her blood status, but it’s a pet peeve of mine to see every OC in Slytherin written as a pure-blood. Pure-blood is not common AT ALL. My idea for your character was a pure-blood mother and a half-blood father. I like the idea of this high and mighty, pretentious woman who is an extreme blood purist and brags about her own pure-blood ancestry, when in fact she’s married to a half-blood. This could be a source of conflict between your character and her mother, as your character may not have such strong feelings about blood purity and doesn’t like how her mother is constantly and unintentionally insulting and belittling her father. Another idea I had for your character’s father was that perhaps he was the illegitimate child of a Russian noblewoman (also a witch) and her Muggle servant or something. You could easily incorporate ways in which your character’s father overcompensates for his parentage. Him being more passive about supporting Voldemort could be a result of his blood status.

[name]One[/name] of the best ways (to me) to make a female OC not a [name]Mary[/name]-[name]Sue[/name] is to make her short, plain, or a little overweight. So often you read about OCs who are “like a Greek goddess, with long, wavy locks that flow gracefully down her flawless curves and are golden like the gentle rays of the sun” or some assorted other ridiculous purple prose, unrealistic description. If your character’s mother is Italian or Greek, obviously your character will have an olive complexion, dark hair, and darker eyes. I might consider making her shorter or not the prettiest. Also, she may under no circumstances fall in love with [name]Draco[/name] Malfoy and turn him into a puppy-hugging, flower-picking, love-song-singing, turtleneck-wearing weirdo. Not saying you’d do that, but I’ve seen it done before and it was just… creepy.

This is probably a lot more response than you wanted. As for name suggestions, the ones I’m stuck on are [name]Violante[/name] and [name]Viola[/name]. The female lists from these blog posts also came to mind:

3

Ahh, brilliant ideas! :smiley: I love it.
I didn’t have her blood status set in stone, because I too didn’t like the stereotype of slytherin-pureblood, but I wanted her mother to be very passionate about blood status, so I really wasn’t too sure how to make that work. However your ideas for her parents are brilliant! Much appreciated. :smiley:

As for the lacking of richness in her name, I agree with you. I was concerned with giving her a name that was too “mary-sue”, I’d thought about Elena, Selena, Valentina respectively for her. Selena was nixed because it was too Selena Gomez, and cold feeling. She’s more earthy. Plus her mother ended up being Selina nn Lina and I didn’t see that part changing much.
Her former names were at one point over the years: Kyla, Dalia, Averie-Marie (ick).

Lol @ purple prose
Yes, she has darker complexions, more exotic. I want her to have a lot of “muchness” as Dr.Suess would put it, she’s supposed to be slightly bigger in frame than “normal”, but not over-weight (this ties in with her mother, who obsesses over her children being perfect, perhaps her mother even cast a spell or something to ensure they’d be aesthetically pleasing to her or something), she’s not a thin, skinny, tiny girl though. For example, she doesn’t like sitting on guys laps because she feels she’s too heavy for them sort of thing. I’d say she’s definitely not a size 0, but like a size 7 in jeans.
Everything about her is…muchier. Her hair is darker, her skin is darker, her eyes are “deeper”, her hips are a bit wider, her thighs a bit bigger (but her bra size is average, I don’t want to make that a huge part of her. lol), her hair is thicker, perhaps more coarse than silky, her shoe size is like a 8 or 9. Her fingers aren’t dainty, doll-like ones. She’s not a fragile, thin, dainty kind of girl. She’s elegant, but not dainty. She’s more dramatic than that.

I thought about making her short, but to me that seems like an ideal description. (I was a tall kid and always felt extremely out of place, so to me being short is a positive quality, that makes you endearing and fits you in with others. Whereas tall makes you stand out, and makes you more awkward, less smooth in movements. All of the popular, gorgeous girls I went to school with or knew were short, 4’8-5’4.)
Lol, ew gosh no. I’ve read those stories before too, I’m avoiding that cliche at all costs! I don’t want fluff, I want deep drama. :smiley:

I greatly appreciated your response! I love lengthy replies, probably because I enjoy reading/writing and it makes me think. :slight_smile:
Thank you so very much for those links! Much appreciated.

4

I run a HP RPG website so I’m well versed in all things Harry Potter and creating characters to go in the world.

This link goes to our embargo’s page and lists things that are either really cliche or unrealistic at Hogwarts. One of the things I noticed on the info you gave was that she lives in Canada? If so she’d go to the Canadian school and wouldn’t be invited to attend Hogwarts. If you want to go to a British school you have to live in Britain :wink:

This link goes to our main rules page. Section Three talks about RPing and what makes good or bad drama, dealing with Mary Sue’s etc.

Obviously not all of it’ll be relevant to your story but I hope it’s a help! :slight_smile: I prefer Elise Valentina for her name by the way.

5

Oh I love it! Thank you so much.

Yes, but her family has to move back.
The reason they moved was to avoid persecution from the Ministry for their roles in [name]Lord[/name] Voldemort’s activity. When he returns, her mother ushers her husband to move back to [name]England[/name] so they can partake in it, they move back a year after he returns. I know it’s very cliche and horrible mary sue like, but I don’t want her to attend the school and be involved in everything that goes on each year. I want her to have a naive kind of perception, to be a bit unaware of how serious it all is.

6

Now that I’ve read the explanation of your character’s appearance, I don’t think you’re running the risk of her becoming a [name]Mary[/name]-[name]Sue[/name] in that department.

[name]Glad[/name] I could help! Let me know when you post your fanfic; I’d love to read it.

By the way, I’ve always been curious as to whether or not Hogwarts has foreign exchange students.

7

Oh okay good! I value the input of others a lot when it comes to creating female characters for that very reason. :slight_smile:

Thank you! I’ll link you to it when I post it. It’ll likely be on FF.net.

As have I, I did a little research years back, and came across information that stated it could happen, but was relatively rare. As for if there were any during the time of the books? I don’t know, probably not. Since I’m not from the UK, I prefer to write about foreign students, or at least have the non-foreign ones spend a few years abroad for whatever reason so that way I don’t have to worry too much about “cultural” errors.
But then again, I’m a bit of a rebel with writing, breaking rules, and guidelines and such. :wink:

8

Have you decided on a name for her yet?

9

Unfortunately not yet. Though I’m liking [name]Andrea[/name] more than [name]Elise[/name], and may do [name]Andrea[/name] [name]Valentina[/name], or maybe [name]Elisa[/name] instead of [name]Elise[/name], I am considering just naming her [name]Elena[/name]. I’d like a name that works in Russian, and Italian/Greek.

I took a detour and started searching for her surname. Her dad’s Russian, so I have these in mind:
Markovic
Lagunova - I like that the meaning deals with water
Volkova - My favourite one, but I’m worried it might be [name]Mary[/name]-[name]Sue[/name] like?
Barkova
Belyakova
Charkova

I imagine her dad looking like [name]Gerard[/name] [name]Butler[/name] so I’m drawn to Markovic, Barkov, and Belyakov for him.

10

[name]Elena[/name] [name]Valentina[/name] would be my choice from among those three. If you used [name]Elena[/name], I would go for [name]Elena[/name] Markovic. Belyakova is intriguing too.

11

Yeah? I like [name]Elena[/name] [name]Valentina[/name] a lot too, but I was worried it was too redundant with -len- being there in both names.
[name]Elena[/name] [name]Valentina[/name] Markovic is great though. I agree with Belyakova being intriguing too.

I’m also considering [name]Natalya[/name] or [name]Natalia[/name], so the top three first names for her are [name]Andrea[/name] (it’s still hanging on), [name]Elena[/name], and [name]Natalia[/name]/[name]Natalya[/name]. I think that [name]Valentina[/name] is definitely going to be her middle name. :slight_smile:

As I think about it…Volkov would be fitting for her dad as well, it means wolf and I find that wolf eyes being the stand out trait, relating to her father because his eyes are supposed to be his striking trait.

12

Markovic is Serbian / Croatian, it’d be rarer in [name]Russia[/name]. At least I think it might be? Markov is deffo Russian but since your MC’s female it’d be Markova.

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[name]Ah[/name]! Thank you!

14

[name]How[/name] about [name]Elena[/name] [name]Valeria[/name]? [name]Just[/name] an idea. Otherwise I nominate [name]Elena[/name] [name]Valentina[/name].

[name]Ah[/name], and to avoid [name]Mary[/name] Sues, develop-develop-develop!!! :wink:

15

I prefer [name]Valentina[/name] much more over [name]Valeria[/name], but it is an idea! I’ll add it to the list.

Good advice, I think I’m going to be spending weeks developing her character more, maybe months. Haha.

16

Yeah, it can take ages. >< But there’s always that joyful moment where they fall into place. Or, um, I abandon them for another story. But then I can always come back to it ha ha.

How does your MC feel about her family’s predicament?

17

Haha! I totally know what you mean, I’ve done that many a time myself.

In terms of her parents being supporters of Voldemort? She doesn’t really know just yet, it’s going to be revealed through out the story, she does have suspicions, but is rather naive. She grew up pretty oblivious to it all.
However when she realises how deep in they are, mainly her mother, she’s very upset and uncomfortable with it. Rather disappointed in it all, especially her father’s role in it.

EDIT: And I’m reconsidering making her father Russian, it feels a bit…cliche? or something, I was thinking of making it some similar Eastern European country, such as Serbian, Ukrainian, Montenegrin, maybe Hungarian.
Thoughts?