There are those who call me... Tim?

[rj_anderson]

It has been suggested to me that I change the name of my young hero from book two of FAERY REBELS (a.k.a. REBEL in the UK). I am told that for most British people, especially of the younger generation, the name "Timothy" is considered fairly radically uncool.

I don't mind Timothy's name being unpopular, because he was born to missionary parents and raised in Uganda, and him not fitting in with the cool kids in England is kind of the point. However, if it's going to make all my young readers in the UK gag and put the book down hastily the moment they see it (as I'd be tempted to do if the hero's name was, say, "Leslie") then I suppose I would be foolish not to take that into account.

So I'm doing a poll. The first question is specifically for UK readers, but for the second I'd be glad to hear from anybody.

[Poll #1398565]

If you're not on LiveJournal, you can still participate by leaving a comment as "Anonymous". Thanks for helping me out on this.

Comments

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Can you let me know which version of IE you're using, and whether you're on Mac or PC? If it's a persistent problem I'll have my web designer check it out.

Re Tim, it's been suggested to me that the situation would be improved if I just changed his name from "Timothy" to "Tim" throughout the narration. But I tried it and I just... I couldn't. It looked totally stupid to me. Maybe I need to try it again and give myself more time to get used to it, but right now I'd rather change the name entirely than shorten it.

[alison23.livejournal.com]

I'm using IE 7.06. I've had this problem on your page for a while. Strangely, posting a comment fixes the way it looks, but if I reload the problem comes back.

I wasn't actually thinking you should use Tim instead of Timothy, but I think of them as fairly interchangeable--I assumed any positive connotations of "Tim" would also extend to "Timothy"! What about Timothy Dalton--is he just too old to give the name Timothy any cred?

[kerravonsen]

Re Tim, it's been suggested to me that the situation would be improved if I just changed his name from "Timothy" to "Tim" throughout the narration. But I tried it and I just... I couldn't. It looked totally stupid to me.
Oh I agree. Tim feels completely different to Timothy for me. Tim makes me think of "Tiny Tim", it just feels weak. Whereas I like "Timothy", it feels old-fashioned, yes, but more robust, somehow.

I don't like "Thomas". I'm not sure about "Tom". It somehow makes me think of the kind of character in fairy-tales who is a simpleton... ah, I know what I'm thinking of, I'm thinking of the song "Thomas the rhymer", where the character in question saw the Queen of Faerie and bowed and said "All hail the mighty Queen of Heaven", which struck me as a bit simple-minded. Then one has "Tom Thumb", but on the other hand, one has "Tom Bombadil".

But in any case, either one of them is better than Eustace Clarence... 8-)

[infiniteviking]

Thomas the Rhymer.... the Steeleye Span version's my favorite. *grins* Wiki says the Queen later gave him an choice of gifts -- harping or prophecy -- and he chose the latter, leading to the nickname 'True Thomas'. Somehow I didn't think of him as simple, though -- just courteous and open-minded.

There's also Great Tom, the loudest bell at Oxford, and Old Tom, the... least loud bell at Discworld's Unseen University (which breaks through the cacaphony of all the other clocks to toll its twelve sonorous silences).