@hitchcockblonde; agreed, people will read into anything and everything, names in particular i feel, i've riddled a few of mine with some subversive meaning and connotations, hopefully one day to play tricks on the mind of english classes everywhere...hah...yes, i'm sure

@alex moore; i think you've just inspired my next post, naming the book itself is something i've not given too much thought to, in complete contrast to actually naming characters

I'll break form and carry the conversation over to novel titles, since you made me think of it: Blake Snyder suggests that crafting the title is vital to the success of the project:"A great title must have irony and tell the tale," he writes. Of course, that's easier said than done...

You can try and be as neutral as possible and call your main man John Smith and some school kid will still write an essay on how you're purposefully subverting the blank canvas blandness of its everyman cultural significance to show just how individualistic your protagonist is.

You could call someone Wilbur Force and one reader will assume they're a bodybuilder, another a gay playwright from the 19thC. As Col and Wordvixen say, it's all subjective.

Very 'pointed' names can seem painfully mannered. But then every name is 'pointed' - and I also love Dickens - so you may as well have fun and go for Antihero Majestic.

I also agree with nveria87, in naming conventions are subconscious as much as they are conscious. without knowing it i have counted out names due to personal experiences with a name, a bad bus driver, a bad person or alternatively wanted to use (or incorporate) the name of someone close and dear. etc etc.

Cheers x

Michaels and Matthews in novels are automatically prats in my mind.

I guess this could be elaborated on to hint at relationships between characters, teasing the reader etc.

always glad to see that my rants are a source of inspiration ;)

I see that you also have a character whose name is based on Greek mythology. Personally, I think it's funny how character names and their implications work. Strangely enough, one of my main characters Ares started to develop some of aspects of his personality in accord with his mythological namesake, but in the end this happened rather unintentional. Maybe it's been a subconscious thing, but in the end he definitely has some moments when he lives up to the general connotations that come along with his name.

Personally, naming characters is as much a subconscious thing as it is intentional - in the end it just depends. For example, I sort of built my naming system, if you want to call it that, around a certain pattern. There are a lot of ae's and y's that occur in places as well as character names, some of them actually hint at Greek mythology, some come totally out of the blue.

I definitely agree that a character's background and personality influences your choice of name though. Jay for example is sort of a tomcat at times who sort of seems to be torn between genders (and the rest of the crew loves to poke fun at the gender neutrality of her name) There are definitely some fun things to do with character names :)

Good luck with your own writing!