I have one character whose name I’m having a really hard time nailing down. I’ve changed his name a ton of times already since starting into this writing project. All the names I can think of either don’t make sense for him to have given his background, or just don’t feel right on him.
I keep gravitating towards “Cas” names because they sound great and suit him, but it’s recently come to my attention that there are A TON of Cassien/Castiel/etc. names in fiction right now, and it feels like maybe I should let that category of name be, to avoid the risk of a reader picking up the book and being like “oh yes, ANOTHER basic fantasy boy. Very original” and it kind of cheapening the feel of the character and the book generally.
I’ve most recently been wanting to call him Castile, which is probably an extra layer of problem because that’s more of a historical place name than a person name. And in the book he’s royalty from a country that’s pretty obviously most equivalent to [name_f]France[/name_f], so having this random name association with Spain could be super random and unhelpful. (And the other characters from this country have more French-sounding names)
It just sounds so good on him though, and I especially like that it has “Cas” as a nice nickname that can be tossed into dialogue where I want to show casualness or closeness between characters. If I do change the name I’d prefer to pick one that still has a good nickname option.
Thoughts on this category of name? Thoughts on Castile specifically? Recommendations for different names that sound plausibly [name_u]French[/name_u] and preferably have a nice nickname?