Choosing a character's name
The choice of a character's name generally corresponds to a well-weighed decision of a novelist.
To give only one example, Isabelle de Charrière naming the young girl of the Lettres écrites de Lausanne (1785) Cécile, is certainly creating an opposition toward Laclos' Liaisons dangereuses, published few years earlier.
Names are charged, be it by preceding authors as in the case of Laclos and Charrière, or by cultural or religous history as in the case of names as Maria, Eva, Martha, Susanna. The decison to name a a female character Susanna is to be studied. This will be made more easy in the next version of the database WomenWriters.
SvD, September 2007
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- The writing side > Choosing a character's name