October 16th, 2019

What’s in a Name?
 
To be authentic in writing I believe it is important that character names reflect the location of the novel.  For the Irish Trouble Series I researched names for various areas of Ireland.  For example, Murphy is the most common Irish surname and the are located in south east Ireland, around Cork.  This was the reason my protagonist, Ian Murphy, grew up in Cork and lived there as  an adult.

My fourth novel takes place in Pike County, Kentucky, the most eastern county in the state.  Through Google I found a listing of surnames in Eastern Kentucky.  I was surprised to discover many Irish surnames.  I then studied the history of Pike County and learned that many Irish initially immigrated to the east coast of the United States – New York and Boston and then moved again to eastern Kentucky to work in the coal mines.  The population was not large enough to supply workers when the mines were busy so they advertised for workers.
I wanted the protagonist to have a strong name and it took me a long time to decide to write about another Irish character.  My first choice for a name was not at all Irish – I chose ‘Dawson’ but didn’t have a good reason because it was not on the list of Pike County names.  It took me about two months to decide to give the protagonist an Irish name.  I wanted it to be a common name but not too Irish like Doherty or O’Connel.  I chose Daly. 
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Selecting a first name was even more work.  I’ll spare you the details of my process but I chose Rowan – Rowan Daly is the 19 year old protagonist in my novel with the current title of -  The Mostly True Story of Rowan Daly – Pike County Pack Horse Librarian.