Characters' Names

[erastes]

I know i've complained about this before but gah!  NAMES! Sometimes I'm sooo tempted to go bananas and leap down the "implausible name route" like Deymien Aztec de Chandon or something.  I've actually started writing today and there i go, tap tap tap - I have the name of the butler and I stick "Mrs XXXX" for the housekeeper because she's not vital - and then I hit the first major male character and GRIND TO A BLOODY HALT.

I go and search for Parish records - and am bombarded with Charles and Edward and George and John -sheesh- all so DULL! Names just drive me bonkers.

Does anyone have any great links?  And no, I don't want baby names sites, I want parish records, or sites with real names!  help help help. Or you may be responsible for me having a Deymien Chandon.  (although that's SO bloody tempting...) I'd like unusual but plausible if you know what I mean.

Comments

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes, i like that. Not that she'll ever get called it, poor woman...

[aunty_marion]

Other possibilities for names are to look at alternative versions - for instance, you might not want Esther, but you could have Hester. Just looking at a couple of Victorian children's books will give you dozens of names! (Because the authors would not only be picking up the newer names, they'd be remembering names from their own childhoods too.) - Hester, Hesba (famous-ish Victorian author Hesba Stretton), Jessica/Jess/Jessie, Toby, Beth/Bessie/Bess/Betty, Molly/Dolly/Peg/Meg/Maggie, Jonas, Winifred/Winny/Winnie, Alice/Alicia, Fred/Freddie, George/Georgie (remember lots of boys would have been named after the Prince Regent!), and quite a lot of the less common 'biblical' names - Simon, Elisha, Cyrus, Jehoshaphat, Daniel/Danny, Josiah, and so on and on and on...