A name … or two…
Lately I had cause to pull out the WIP of The Chronicles of Eirie Book Four. I noticed something glaring, something I had never honestly thought about before. Alongside this WIP (I write in longhand and then transcribe, editing in the process), I laid the WIP of Book Two of The Gisborne Saga – different genre, different characters, different world.
Isabella, daughter of Adelina…
And again, that glaring something.
In Book Four of the fantasy, the female protagonist’s name is Isabella, occasionally called Belle, often called Ibo by those with whom she lives in the secretive province called the Han.
Ysabel of Moncrieff
In Book Two of The Gisborne Saga, the female protagonist’s name is Ysabel, always called Ysabel, sometimes My Lady or Lady Ysabel.
And oddly, amazingly, I had never noticed the similarity. The fantasy had not been touched since sometime in 2010, when I began to be sucked into historical fiction and Guy of Gisborne’s alternate life. So perhaps that’s a reason … forgotten, out of sight, out of mind.
I’ve always loved the name, ever since I was old enough to recognise that Isabel was my mother’s second name (a name she detests to this day). But I doubt that is enough to cause me to christen two heroines in two books by the same name. The name means God’s Promise and if Bella is added to the end, one can assume it means ‘beautiful’ and there are dozens of different variants from the exotic Gaelic Ishbel to the wonderfully medieval Provencal version, Elizabel. The etymology is quite well described on Wikipedia.
And of course there are many famous Isabels (or Isobels/Ysabels) throughout history, again listed in Wikipedia. But surely not enough, I think, to entrench that inability to recognise the similarity of names in the two stories.
To be honest, I reckon its my mum’s fault – rattling on about the disliked name and saying that when she was at school, everyone teased her by chanting: ‘Is-a-bel necessary on a bike!’
For me the name, all variants thereof, is distinctly feminine but not at all wall-flowerish or retiring. In each instance, both in the fantasy and the historical fiction, she is exactly what I want her to be – personified by her name.
Should I change the name of each?
Ummm…
Not on your sweet nelly!!
My latest novel, nearing completion, tells the Jezebel story from a sympathetic Phoenician point of view. (She was a Phoenician princess.) I decided to use the alternative ancient form of her name.
It is Izavel . . .
Ann, it is a wonderful variant. So evocative and just rolls of the tongue.
Thank you for sharing it and the news of your latest novel on the blog. After reading The Testament of Mariam and marking it as one of the best historical fiction books I was privileged to read in 2009, I have been waiting impatiently for another Swinfen title to be published. Best wishes.
Oh I so know the way of using names more than once… the name that’s stuck with me and often reappears is Chris and it’s many variations (mostly Christine and Chrystal) – probably because my mom kept talking about changing her name to that of her great-grandmother, or was it my great grand mother, I forget now.
Now I feel I should look into the meaning of that name, along with Michael and Mathew and Sarah and Ryan… Though Ryan could be the result of a elementary school crush.
Strangely I think my two Sarah’s could be the same person in parallel worlds. One the female protagonist, the other a supporting minor character. Intriguing, that I had only just noticed that. :}
Hi Cathryn, I am so glad another writer has done the same thing!
And is it a bad thing? I’m not so sure. The characters are very different in the worlds in which they inhabit and I suspect given that one’s in a fantasy and the other in a hist.fict, that they may even have a different raft of readers. Hopefully if they are all the same readers, they will be forgiving…