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Behind the Name: Wyre

Paperback Writer gave me this idea for my post today thanks to hers, By Any Other Name. I thought I’d share with you how I came up with the name Lady Doctor Wyre.

I have a female character in a skewed Regency setting with a science fiction touch.  I wanted a name that blended both of those elements–no matter how crazy that sounds–which also hinted at the underlying world. So I took a piece of paper and drew a line down the middle.  On the left, I started writing all the key words and inspirations behind the science of my world:

Doctor Who, nanobots, assemblers, dissemblers, etc.

It felt rather silly, but since I had written “Who” I wrote down the other journalistic questions: Why, Where, What, How.

On the other side of the paper, I started writing down all the popular and known names involving the Regency elements.

Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility, Emma, Lizzie…but none of these were really working for me.  Until I hit:

Jane Eyre.

Eyre.  I really liked the spelling and of course I love the story. I let my eyes scan back over the SF list and landed on those W words, and all the sudden, I had it.

Wyre

Lady implies the Regency setting. Doctor W hopefully resonates with Doctor Who and implies the SF elements and Charlotte’s background. Wyre is a combination of Eyre and Who.

There you have it!

No snippet today — the novella is only about 30K and I can’t share too much of it. However, I did submit it yesterday and we’ll have to wait and see if it’s a go or not.

5 thoughts on “Behind the Name: Wyre

  1. […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Pearl and joelysue, Susi M.. Susi M. said: RT @joelysue: New post: Behind the Name: Wyre https://joelysueburkhart.com/?p=2886 […]

  2. How fun…thanks for sharing that.

  3. Cewl! I hope it’s a go. 😉

  4. I’m feeling left out now. I have no cool way for naming my characters, usually… I just go with what seems right at the time. 🙂

    Good luck on the sub!

  5. Thanks, everyone!

    Nicole, I don’t always have such labor in a name, but this name really needed to be special. I wanted her to be a recurring character with a catchy name.

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