I am writing a dark academia style story about an upper-class family who need to keep the “perfect family” image in order to keep the secret society the parents are involved with safe. Unfortunately for the parents, their children are human, and thing are naturally thrown off balance because children never end up the way their parents envisioned. Because the story is all about obligation, social expectations, betrayal, and exploitation within the family unit and how that impacts life outside of the household (the high school is a boarding school, but the middle and elementary schools are day schools) it is important to give each character a good, memorable name that still fits within the setting of the story (in this case, it is the 1950s and the school is based off of one in my home state of Tennessee). I feel like I have crafted good names for the parents and 4/5 of the children, but the middle child/youngest girl is proving to be troublesome.
Here are the siblings from youngest to oldest. I tried to give a brief overview of the character’s defining traits and how they act at the beginning of the story.
- Cecilia Odette - in College - The social butterfly. She is a theatre major and knows all aspects of a good production like the back of her hand. If you need someone to sew an elaborate costume, make backdrops, or play the lead in the school musical, she is your girl. She is not great when it comes to math or Latin, but does well at everything else, especially botany.
- Beatrice Jane - High School Senior - The rebel of the family. She skips class and smokes yet somehow never gets caught by teachers or her parents. Her grades are mid-range unless she is interested in the class. Her favorite subjects are Psychology and, surprisingly, home economics. She has a tight knit group of friends that she would do anything for.
- The (unnamed) middle child - High School Freshman - She has perfect grades and takes all AP classes, but is rarely acknowledged unless her siblings are in academic trouble and need to be bailed out. She loves English and is on the dance team. Honestly, she is a people pleaser who will cry at the drop of a hat and would rather light herself on fire than call someone out.
- Edward Leon - Early Middle School - The golden child and jokester of the family. He hates everything to do with school and is happy to do nothing, leaving his sister to do all of his work to avoid publicly embarrassing their parents. He does, however, have a promising athletic career and pulls his weight on the debate team.
- Vincent Sebastian - Late Elementary School - The spoiled baby. Very talkative and opinionated. He loves geography and gym class. He constantly plays sick and goes on about how annoying his classmates are. He wants to become an elementary school teacher because he claims he is “great with kids” which always gets a chuckle from his older sisters.
Their parents are Lucinda Marie and Alistair Grey.
I guess you can already tell from this list the style of names I am going for, but here are some of the names I have been considering for this character if it helps you more. That being said,I am certainly open to names that are not on this list.
- Alice
- Claire/Clara
- Helena
- Elaine
- Roxanne
- Vivian/Vivien
- Daphne
- Annaliese
I am also trying to decide on a surname for this family. I decided to pull names from founders and prominent supporters of a local university, which leaves me with the following list
- Black
- Lambert
- Locke
- Stuart
- Bishop
- Elliott
- Green
- Hoffman
- Woods
I would be incredibly thankful for any suggestions because at this point I am stuck.
