As I was watching the Olympics I realized that there was a treasure trove of potential character names from the roster of athletes. Coming up with surnames is a struggle for me. I can spend hours choosing just the right one,\u00a0and I notice they tend to be more Anglo-Saxon in nature. Perhaps its because they are easier to read and spell. But sometimes you want to add a little ethnic flavor to a character and pouring over books of names gets tedious.<\/p>\n
Inspiration struck when I was watching the men’s figure skating competition and French skater Florent Amodio took to the ice. Interesting name<\/em>, I thought. Exotic, yet easy to pronounce and spell. Then Stephane Lambiel appeared and spun his way into our collective memory. Ah-ha, I have found a new resource!<\/p>\n Can’t you just imagine a viking warlord named after alpine skier Aksel Lund Svindal? Joannie Rochette sounds like a super spy to me. Is Christop Sumann an Austrian businessman or biathlon silver medalist?<\/p>\n Unfortunately, not all names are made for a hero or heroine.\u00a0Gregor Schlierenzauer might have won a gold medal and two\u00a0bronzes, but his name\u00a0doesn’t quite flow across your vision. Not only would\u00a0 spellchecker go crazy,\u00a0it would become\u00a0a blob word\u00a0that you skip\u00a0to move on to words you know.\u00a0 Skipping words can take a reader out of your story which is the last thing\u00a0a writer\u00a0wants.<\/p>\n So while Italian speed skater Matteo Anesi may have ended up thirtieth in the 1000 meters, perhaps he will find victory as my latest superhero. A former race car driver who is involved in a fiery crash that ignites his power to control any piece of machinery.<\/p>\n Actually, I like that.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Romance novel character or Olympic athletes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39eCR-24","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annaalexander.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annaalexander.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annaalexander.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annaalexander.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annaalexander.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.annaalexander.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annaalexander.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annaalexander.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annaalexander.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}