Female character names in fiction - unrealistic

[ImJustMadAboutSaffron]

I just finished a book that was quite enjoyable chick lit, I don't read lots of these but my friend passes a few on and I pick out what I think look the best among them and mix in with other reads.

My gripe is about character names. They are invariably cutesy pie names. For example the female characters (all early 30s) were called Roxy, Poppy, Clemmie, Ruby and Daisy. These, however, were the most popular names for baby girls at the time the characters would have been born:

SARAH
LAURA
GEMMA
EMMA
REBECCA
CLAIRE
VICTORIA
SAMANTHA
RACHEL
AMY

(to be fair there was a Rachel in the book, but she was a side character).

By contrast the older females (ranging from 48 to 60) were Sylvia, Joan and Gloria. These are my grandma's generation, not born between 1959 and 1971.

So, AIBU about this?

Cute names are typical i guess for chicklits. The name itself “chicklit” makes me shiver. Women who call themselves chicks … i don’t expect any proper names in that😎

YABU - it’s not claiming to be historical fiction, and I have a cutesy name in that age bracket. I like all the different names. If you can’t bend the rules in ‘chick lit’ where can you?

I don't like the term chicklit, but I didn't coin it. I used it as convenient shorthand.

Freya North by any chance? Its just lazy research or trying to make them 1. Posher and 2. Possibly picking the older generation from their own (older than aiming at) memory

It wasn't Freya North, I read one of hers and didn't bother with any more it was filth !!!!!

I think you're right about the older generation though.

I’m 35 and in my year at secondary school there were three Roxannes and two Daisys. I used to work with a Ruby of a similar age and one of my friends is a Clem (Clemency.) So I don’t find those out of their time. The older women’s names are those of at least two decades previous, I agree. I wonder if it’s primarily the age of the target audience and wanting them to identify with the characters, and therefore typical “older woman” names easily recognised as “older women” to a younger reader.

I am 33. My year and the year above at school did indeed contain all of the "normal" names from your list. However in the same school years we also had a Roxy /Roxana and a Daisy and there was a Clemmie a year or so above that. I also know of other adult Clemmies around that age and knew a different Roxy, a different Daisy and a Ruby at uni- all around my own age. So unusual yes but not impossible that they'd have those names!

The only name that sticks out to me is Poppy as being popular for a younger age.

I agree, it is annoying when you have a group of names not typical for that era.

I was born late 60's, I had Joans, Glorias and Silvias in my school, in the above and below years. If you live in an area were family names are used, they span through the generations. As a pp there were Daisy, Ruby, Roxys in my DD'S (born 1985) school, Poppy was popular for dogs. But yes, cute names are picked.

I know a Roxie and a Clemmie n their early 30s.

but I agree that the “middle aged” names are more older lady names.

You think it's not realistic for people to have uncommon names?

I'm early 30s and neither me, nor any of my friends, have a name from that list of most popular names.

YABU.

Just to add, my friends who had babies in the late 80/early 90's, didn't use any of those names.

I was born in the mid 70's. The most common names in my school year were Rachel, Tracey/Tracy, Clare/Claire, Julie, Emma, Nicola, Michelle & Lisa and the odd Hazel/Heather or various forms of Katy/Katherine

It depends on the author. You may be right that for some authors it's carelessness. However, I don't know if data is available for "most popular names" subdivided by socioeconomic group but I would lay good money on the 3 lists of top 10 names subdivided into upper-class, middle class and working class families in the 1990s being very very different from one another, and in any socioeconomic bracket there are some parents who will be deliberately avoiding any name that might be in the top 50 - so if the characters names aren't featured in the top 10 that could well be deliberate and telling you something important about the character.

Age and gender accuracy aside, my pet hate is the ridiculous, supposedly “British” name that Dan Brown chose for his villain in The Da Vinci Code - Sir Leigh Teabing, fgs! Not an ancient surname, and an unlikely first name, too, for a member of the aristocracy of the UK… spoilt the whole series for me!
I feel your pain, OP. It’s like an author naming a Victorian Englishwoman Tracey!

I'm 32 and I have a cousin Clemmie and friends Poppy and Ruby, all in my same age group. I've never met a Roxy but I worked with a Daisy who was a year younger than me.

They're not from the "most popular" list but they're not completely out there names for a group of early 30's women.

No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about fiction. I think the names used in this fictional book are rather uncommon, as the only individuals I know called Roxy, Clemmie and Daisy are actually dogs or cats. I have a student called Ruby and my friend has a dog called Poppy, but my cousin's ex girlfriend is also called Poppy and she's about that age.

When all these names are clustered together it looks uncommon, I think anyway.

I read a lot of shit free kindle books before bed, all the womens names are things like Misty Calhoun and Stormy Kritzenhorn.

No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about fiction.

You're talking about fiction with regards to it being unrealistic, as stated in the title of this thread. Hence why I included my example of me and my friends, we're a group of uncommon names clustered together. So it's not unrealistic.

I can understand also why an author would want to give their characters more individualistic names.

I think I’d get the characters muddled up if they all had normcore names like Sarah and Emma. Like when you read Russian classics, can’t pronounce the names let alone all the variations, so in your head call them all Kryzhcjtvjngudet then lose the thread of the plot. Easier to keep track of Roxy, Clemmie and co.

Speaking as a fifty year old, I'd almost be offended at Sylvia, Joan and Gloria if I didn't find them so funny.

It's a failure of basic maths - much like the continued targeting of seventy-somethings with the music of the early 1940s when they were unborn or infants rather than the 1960s music of their teens.

I'm strangely invested in this now and have spent my lunch hour researching (very superficially) character names and genres.

I've just looked at the other names used by the same author in other books, these include Izzy, Twilight, Lola, Holly and Ivy (in a Christmas book, of course!)

Different authors have used Daisy again - she's the good character and her sister is called Anne but she's not so nice - amongst others I found another Ruby, Melody, Tori and Meadow.

On to some of these more raunchy books with "alpha male" characters and the names are Chase, Flynn, Vance, Holt, and, rather incongruously, one called Ian.

I know someone who called her two boys Steven and David and was told she had chosen boring names.

Maybe this would be better on the books board!!!

YABU about the younger characters. It's perfectly legit to choose unrealistic names that suit the vibe of the book - unless the novel is explicitly aiming at a kind of social realiam (which I'm guessing chick lit isn't).

YANBU about the names of older characters, because these names create the sneaking suspicion that the author is unreflectingly ageist, viewing anyone in their forties and above as a stereotype 'old person', defined by their age in a way that younger characters aren't. Hence giving them old lady names without stopping to think.

I do agree that the 'older generation names' are reall old fashioned though!

I wonder if part of it is you want names that people will remember and talk about? I never remember the names of e.g. Sally Rooney's characters, except the one with an unconventional name (girl called Bobby). Chicklit also tends to be idealised lifestyles, so maybe quirky names are part of that.