I’m judging a book contest again. In general, the books are much better than last year, but I have a few thoughts on character names.

Character names are deceptively important. The name you give your main character is a word your reader is going to read over and over again throughout the book, so it’s important to pick a good one. Here are some things I have learned not to do from my reading the last few weeks:

Don’t pick obviously symbolic names. Don’t name the wife in the book Jewel or the honorable politician Noble. Just don’t do it. Odds are, you are not being as clever as you think, and your reader will roll her eyes and have prejudices against you that you don’t want her to have.

Don’t give important characters names beginning with the same letter. If you repeat the first letter of a name, the reader will mix the characters up. Last night I read a book about two brothers, Greg and Gary. I am still not sure who is who. I kept confusing them and confusing their points of view. If the writer had simply named them Greg and, say, Bobby, this would have been avoided.

Avoid long/difficult last names. According to a random website I went to, the longest last name in the world is: MacGhilleseatheanaich. You know what would be a bad choice for a last name of a character? MacGhilleseatheanaich. Unless the whole point of the story is that the character has the longest last name in the world, stick to something simple and pronounceable.

Avoid melodramatic names. This is especially for all your fantasy writers out there: every character cannot be named Zapphora, Emerald, Lady Gondara, and Willow. Sometimes people are just named Susan.

To be clear, I’m not saying that every character has to be named Tom and Jane. I just think you’re better off with simple names than trying to be clever or dramatic. If your character is well-developed, he or she will fill the name up and give it life, not the other way around.