: Re: Are readers tolerant of unique and bizarre character Names? I'm trying to refine a name for my main character and characters in general but I will be focusing on my MC for the example of

@Holmes449

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Weird names are fine and tolerated, my personal rule is to ensure there is no ambiguity in how the reader should pronounce them; and "Nyuna" does have that problem, it is not certain whether to try and pronounce the "Y". The sound is more important than the spelling I think, so I'd ditch the "Y", with "Nuna", or "Nuuna" if you want the first syllable drawn out a bit.

That said and following that rule, I do use weird names, often ancient actual names and foreign myth names few people would recognize, or vaguely recognize (e.g. "Heraud" appeared before "Herald" appeared before "Harold"). I do that to constantly emphasize the "foreignness" of my setting, or to bring special attention to my hero, or both.

You may be instinctively doing something similar; a distinctive name makes a character special. Everybody with distinctive names makes the setting special.

One more general warning on names, however, is to keep yourself a cheat-sheet of names you have used, both for lookup of characters you haven't written about for awhile, and as reference when you need to make a new name: try not to re-use an existing name, and try to make any NEW names not easily confused with a previous name, either by spelling or the sound of the name. (Some readers rely on spelling, some readers hear the words they read as if spoken in their head).

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