[name]Reading[/name] how [name]Neil[/name] Gaiman came up with [name]Coraline[/name] by a typo for [name]Caroline[/name] reminded me that I’d seen something like this before. Somebody (I think it was an RPG designer) named a character Swanda because of a typo he liked. I’ve even done it myself. Well, I haven’t used the name yet, but I will someday. I was writing about the odd names on the Mayflower ([name]Remember[/name], Wrestling, etc.) and wrote Amyflower.
I’m sure many of you have done the same thing. Yes, it counts if you later found it was a real name already; most made-up names are.
My daughter’s name is [name]Emily[/name], and one day I was trying to come up with alternate names combining [name]Emily[/name] and [name]Anna[/name], and these are what I came up with:
Emilea
Emilana
[name]Emiliana[/name]
[name]Emalia[/name]
[name]Emalina[/name]
It turns out, some of these are actual names that I had never heard before!
When I was 12 years old I came up with [name]Destiny[/name]…it wasn’t a name then, but it is now. I also came up with [name]Avalon[/name] when I was about ten, which is getting used some now. Such forsight…huh?
I haven’t made up one that I can remember. When I ask my 5 year old what names she likes she gives me a bunch of made up names. I need to start writing them down because some I could see as names. Not that I’d use them but some one might.
Hmmm some I can remember (spelling them the best I can of course) -
I accidentally made up names such as Kalor, [name_u]Aurel[/name_u], Cassander, Lexandre, and many more. I take names and start making fake names out of them (Kalor = [name_f]Carol[/name_f], [name_u]Aurel[/name_u] = [name_f]Aurelia[/name_f], Cassander = [name_f]Cassandra[/name_f], Lexandre = [name_m]Alexander[/name_m]).
I thought I came up with Nialiah (nee-uh-lie-uh) when I was a kid, but apparently there was a character named Nialiah in some movie from the 1940s.
I accidentally said [name_f]Irie[/name_f] (eye-ree) instead of “Aerie” when I was shopping last week and thought it would be a pretty name. Turns out it’s actually a word in Jamaican Creole. It means something like powerful or excellent. That makes it even more fitting as a name, as far as I’m concerned! I love it. I put it on my list.
I came across the name [name_f]Thalia[/name_f] in books when I was about eight and misread it as Thalila (rhymes with [name_f]Delilah[/name_f]) and thought it was a legitimate name to the point of using it for a character in the first story I ever finished.
When I was pregnant with my daughter [name_f]Lillian[/name_f] I was writing it down on our list of possible names and wrote out Liliandra (My husband didn’t like this one). I asked my daughter [name_f]Lily[/name_f] (6) what she wanted to name our fourth child and she told me two cute ones but she also came up with Boatina.
I made up the name [name_f]Christelle[/name_f] when I was younger. It was kind of a combination of [name_f]Crystal[/name_f] and [name_f]Christine[/name_f].
