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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/3108
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I am writing a (short) story set in Ancient Egypt, and the intended audience are junior high-senior high school students in the US. I am trying to use authentic Ancient Egyptian names for the character, I can find a lot [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_Egyptians). But my colleague warned that using foreign, difficult names like "Amenhotep" will be unattractive to teenagers in my target audience. I disagreed because I think authenticity and exoticism is part of the attraction of a story, but I am wondering if perhaps my colleague's advice has a valid point.

Do you think using authentic, difficult name will be hard to attract teenagers? Is authenticity important when writing for non-adult audience? Which one is more important in this case, using reader-friendly names or authenticity? Do successful reading material for my audience normally use authentic or easy names?

Original score: 8