: Re: Characters with non-standard names My characters' names are always easy-to-read and easy-to-remember because they are common western names (like John or Oscar). However, I am writing a story that

@Chiappetta298

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I don't think there's necessarily a connection issue. (I connect just fine with Anakin Skywalker, or Gimli son of Gloin, or any of the Hunger Games characters (who all had odd names)). There's no correlation between connection and name pronunciation, because it's all in the description of the character.

That said, reading A Game of Thrones lately, I found that an absolute influx of weird and difficult-to-pronounce names made me completely gloss over a dozen or so characters that I probably should have been paying more attention to.

So I find that names I find difficult to read/pronounce in my own mind can throw the ease-of-reading. Depending on your mode of writing, depends on how you could approach the challenge.

For instance, if it was a first-person Western character who had gone to a cultural country, he might create 'western' nicknames for the characters he encounters, using their proper names only when he is speaking to them, or when it seems neccessary.

If it's third-person all the way through, using alliteration might get more mileage. So, referring to some of the characters by description might go down well (eg, referring to them by profession, gender, or some other non-name based descriptor)

That's just my thoughts, though. I guess it depends largely on your target audience and how much 'cultural experience' they have, if they're comfortable with the names you'd be using, or if it will be completely foreign to them (and thus require a learning curve on the reader's behalf)

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