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rj_andersonIt 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]
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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.
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Date: 2009-05-12 11:45 am (UTC)Basically, you'd be giving a character name shared with Timmy Mallet (one of the most loathed tv presenters in the UK), Tim Henman (Britain's most successful tennis player who didn't really win anything), and Timmy the Dog from the Famous 5 books.
In fact, I think that the reason why the UK version of The Office had a character called Tim was to partly identify him as being a bit of a nice-but-loser-sadsack (he became Jim in the US version).
I do however like Thomas. It's a good strong name, Tom works just as well and you see a lot of kids nowadays who are called Tom or Tommy (which you don't get with Tim).
So yes. My vote is for Thomas.