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There is nothing wrong with using common names for characters unless you over use them. If everyone has the most common names for their region, the readers may start paying attention to that inste...
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#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T11:30:39Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44026 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
ShadoCat
·
2019-12-08T11:30:39Z (almost 5 years ago)
There is nothing wrong with using common names for characters unless you over use them. If everyone has the most common names for their region, the readers may start paying attention to that instead of your story. That being said, there are ways of playing with it. You could use it to break expectations. Maybe Ivan is from the UK? Heck, any of them could be from the US. Maybe have two characters named John. One will end up being called by a nickname. My name isn't incredibly common but for one event we had five people with my first name on a radio net. That was a fun mess. With 95 people on the radio net, last names were out as well. Maybe have John meet Juan. Having the "same" name might be a running gag for the two.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-03-25T20:53:31Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 3