: Can I use the name Valerian in my sci-fi novel? I have an Ancient Roman theme with the names of my characters, however someone pointed out to me Valerian is already a scifi character's name.

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Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is my understanding of the law.

(a) You can't copyright a name. By definition, using the same name as someone else's character is not a copyright violation.

(b) You can TRADEMARK a name. But in this case I think the authors of this French comic you refer to -- sorry, I never heard of it before just now -- would have a hard time claiming that they own trademark rights to the name "Valerian" as it's a name that existed hundreds of years before they wrote their stories. J K Rowling owns the copyright to the Harry Potter novels, but she doesn't own the name "Harry", and she can't sue you for writing a book with a character named "Harry".

As someone else on here noted, trademark law is supposed to protect customers from being fooled and companies from losing business because of trickery.

Like, "apple" is an ordinary English word. Apple Computers cannot sue the grocery store for calling the fruit that they sell "apples". Not only was the fruit around first, but no sane person is going to buy a fruit thinking that it's a computer or vice versa. But if you started your own computer company and called it Apple, the courts would likely conclude that you were trying to trick people and would rule against you in a minute.

I created a (very) small business a few years ago, and when I did I got a pamphlet from the state with advice on trademarks that they encouraged me to read before making up a business name. Among the things they said was that there are different level of trademark protection depending on the nature of the name. If you give a business a very generic name, like "Quality Auto Repair", you have the minimum of trademark protection. If someone in another town 100 miles away opens a business with the same name, you probably won't win a trademark suit against him. If someone else uses your name as a general phrase, like if some other auto shop prints an ad where they say "we perform quality auto repair ...", the burden would be on you to prove that they were trying to trick people, and not that they were simply using the words coincidentally. At the other extreme is if you make up a new word. Like if you call your business "Autreparex", you have very strong protections. If someone else uses that word in his advertising, he would have a hard time claiming he was just using it as an ordinary English word.

So you have the reverse here. If they're using the name "Valerian" as the title of their stories or as the name of a series, they'd have a case against you if you wrote stories in the same genre and also named them "Valerian". But if you simply have a character named "Valerian", I think they'd have a hard time suing you.

That said: As I said, I never heard of this comic book before. Maybe it's very popular in some places or among some groups of people. If it's popular among people to whom you hope to sell your books, it might be wise to avoid the name just so it doesn't look like you're trying to steal someone else's character. Like even if I absolutely knew that I could get away with it legally, I would not write an adventure story with an archaeologist name "Indiana", because whatever my reason for using that name, it would sound like I was trying to copy Indiana Jones.

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You can get away with using any names for ay of your characters as long as they don't possess the same personality/traits/ideas etc. as any real person with the said name.

You could name your character Barrack Obama as long as he isn't the President of the US. You can name your character Larry Page as long as he isn't the CEO of a giant tech company. You can name your character Theresa May as long as she isn't leading the UK.

Names cannot be copyrighted; only their associated personas can.

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IANAL, but...

Tl;dr Unless your Valerian is likely to be confused with the other material or 'borrows' copyrighted material from somebody else's character, you're in the clear.

You flat-out can't copyright a name in the US, and most Western countries should be similar.
You can name a character Mickey and Disney can't touch you.
You can name a character Thor and Marvel can't touch you.
You can even name a character Elrond and you're still fine for copyright.
You can copyright a bunch of stuff associated with the name, like things they say and their image, but the name itself is not protected by copyright, even if it's invented.
The name Valerian is fine for copyright.

You can trademark a name, but trademarks exist to prevent consumer confusion from overly-similarly named companies.
Dill computers is a no-go. Boing aerospace engineering would be removed. Diznee media corporation would be slaughtered in court.
Delta the faucet company is fine, even with Delta the airline trademarked - they simply aren't going to be confused, even with the same exact name.
Your Valerian and your story seem very unlikely to be confused with this French comic and movie, so they won't have any ground to stand on for trademark infringement.

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Don't worry about it, and see what your beta readers think

Names are easy to change* late in the editing process. Use whatever name you are most comfortable with, and see if the name throws your beta readers out of the story. If it bothers them, then you're just one "find and replace" away from a new name.

If you're worried about it, then try to introduce the name after a number of other character names have been mentioned. Surrounding the name with similar sounding names will strengthen the Roman associations and weaken the distracting effect of outside media.

Also, is Valerian the totality of their name? The more often they're referred to as "Captain Valerian" or "Gaius Valerian" or whatever the weaker the associations to the comic character will be.

*Usually. If you're trying to include their name in a rhyming prophecy or attach other symbolic meaning to the name it becomes harder.

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