The Curse of Unusual Yet Significant Names

[Caveat Lector]

What do you do if you love a particular name for a character, but that name has already been used for another character and it's unique enough, or at least distinctive enough in pop culture, that if you were to try to use it for another character, that one association would be the only association people would have? Hermione is so commonly associated with Harry Potter to the point where, if I were to try to use that name for a character, I fear that's the association that would stick instead of my own character. I do also love the name Bella, and yet I'm not sure if it's entirely shaken off the Twilight stigma.

[Asceai]

Use a different form of the name.

Hermione -> Ermioni / Ermione
Bella -> Isabella / Anabella / Isabel / Belita

Done.

In the same way, if your kabbalah-inspired VN would be diminished by people making an automatic mental association with Final Fantasy 7, you can always use 'Sefirot'.

[fleet]

If your story is evenly mildly different from 'Twilight' or the Harry Potter series, I don't think your readers will have any problem differentiating.
I've never heard or seen anything where someone said or wrote "I'm not playing this because of the character's name is the same as a character from ......" If someone does that to you, just remember the world is has lots of (insert the noun of your choice).

[SundownKid]

There are so many possible names that I wouldn't use an UN-common but highly recognizable one unless absolutely necessary. For example, I wouldn't name a character Hiccup or Weasley. However, common names I wouldn't care about. Harry, for example, I would be fine naming a character. Bella is a little on the edge, I probably wouldn't use it.

[Mad Harlequin]

There are so many possible names that I wouldn't use an UN-common but highly recognizable one unless absolutely necessary. For example, I wouldn't name a character Hiccup or Weasley. However, common names I wouldn't care about. Harry, for example, I would be fine naming a character. Bella is a little on the edge, I probably wouldn't use it.

This is essentially the way to go (though I think Bella is fine as a name as well). There's no reason to let one story take over names like Bella and Edward, or Hermione, or whatever. It all depends on what the story is like and what the characters are like. I think sticking names like Bella and Edward on two characters in the same story would probably raise eyebrows, but I don't think it would matter too much, provided the characters aren't echoes of someone else's.

[gekiganwing]

What do you do if you love a particular name for a character, but that name has already been used for another character and it's unique enough, or at least distinctive enough in pop culture, that if you were to try to use it for another character, that one association would be the only association people would have?

Let's say that your character's parents were a bit eccentric, and named their kid Bilbo. What happens next?

* He insists on being called a nickname (Billy?)
* He uses a middle name or initials instead
* He shrugs it off

A few other ideas...

* Main character meets several people who were also named after well-known fictional characters. There's a pair of brothers named Ponyboy and Sodapop, and two unrelated girls both named Katniss...
* A person's name used to be ordinary. But then there was a hugely popular movie featuring a character with a (nearly) identical name. Now it's embarrassing by association.
* An individual was given a famous character's name, and raised to live up to those expectations. However, young Jack Sparrow decided to become an ordinary, sober person.

[Mad Harlequin]

* A person's name used to be ordinary. But then there was a hugely popular movie featuring a character with a (nearly) identical name. Now it's embarrassing by association.

I might have to write a short story based on this idea.

[Le Hewitt]

My character in World of Warcraft is named Vyseris (which I had used as a name long before my discovery of A Song of Ice and Fire, which has a character named Viserys). Luckily, I've found that my tiny variation has helped immensely in being able to make people not bat an eye at the similar names, but even if there are the same names, there can always be shared names that are still distinguishable from the famous bearers. Take it as a challenge to get people to get rid of any preconception the name might hold, in a sense, beat the other name.

[theSardonyx]

...but even if there are the same names, there can always be shared names that are still distinguishable from the famous bearers. Take it as a challenge to get people to get rid of any preconception the name might hold, in a sense, beat the other name.

This seems like the same kind of problem you get if you have the same name as a popular person or something. But irl, you know that they're different even if they have the same name, simply because they're not the same people. That's what you have to show your readers: that this and that are different people. Shape the name as something that's yours, a character that people are getting to know. As long as you give the character his/her own life, his/her own personality, they become yours, and even though a reader's expectations on their character from already existing ideas can't really be removed, your character will stand out as someone unique.

Basically: breathe life into the name.

[EndlessOcean]

I think it depends on the design and the role of the character. If you happen to have a female fall in love with a vampire and her name is Annabelle, people are bound to think of Twilight.

I have the same kind of thing, only in my case I associate certain names to the Fire Emblem series. Given the fact that there are loads and loads of characters, it gets hard not to read about a character with the same name as one from the FE universe. I solved this by drawing the character and giving them the name I had in mind. If it still looks too much like a FE chracter I decide on another name that's close to it, or I change the design a bit (hair- and eye color make a great difference).
I hope this helped.