Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

We’ve talked before about the problems people face finding the right name for their children and animals. But for writers, name-finding problems don’t stop there; they carry straight on into the tricky task of finding good names for our characters.

With the first book it’s easy – you can choose names you like that fit the people involved. It’s more tactful, of course, to avoid giving your psychopath the same name as your elderly maiden aunt (unless she would enjoy that), but all in all I found the first few names easy to come by.

Then the rot set in. Just before sending The Cold Cold Sea to my publisher, I realised I’d given one of my less pleasant characters the same name as a relative. I hadn’t noticed before because my relative always went by a nickname, but still… I thought I’d better change it. Jennifer sprang to…