This has been on my mind for a while: have you noticed that there are a lot of heroines in books with a paranormal slant (YA, urban fantasy, paranormal romance) with similar names? I say this with love, of course (because really the most annoying names are the ones with a million apostrophes – ug), but I feel like I keep seeing the same names used. Here are some examples.
Genevieve/Gin/Ginny/Gwendolyn/Gwen or some variation
Meaning: Gwen is originally Welsh and means “Blessed Ring”.
1. Genevieve (Genny) Taylor from the Spellcracker series by Suzanne McLeod
2. Genevieve (Evie) Scelan from the Evie Scelan series by Margaret Ronald
3. The vampire Genevieve from the series by Jack Yeovil
4. Gwen Gelman of the Changeling series by Elaine Cunningham
5. Gwen Williams (YA) from the Others series by Karen Kincy
6. Gin Blanco from The Elemental Assassin series by Jennifer Estep
7. Gwenhyvar (Gwen) from the Hunters Moon (Chronicles of Faerie) by O. R. Melling
8. Gwendolyn the Timid from Gena Showalter’s Paranormal romance Darkest Whisper
Kat or Cat or Kate or Cate or Katherine or some variation
Meaning: Kate means “pure” and is English in origin
1. Catherine (Cat) Crawfield from the Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost
2. Kate Daniels from the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews
3. Katherine Katt (aka Kitty) from Touched by an Alien by Gini Koch
4. Kitty Norville from the Kitty series by Carrie Vaughn
5. Catherine Marais from Melina Morel’s Institu Sceintifique series.
Cassandra/Cassie
Meaning: Cassandra is Greek and means “she who entangles men”. She was given the gift/curse of being able to see the future but no one would believe her
1. Cassandra Palmer from the Cassandra Palmer series by Karen Chance
2. Cassie Roux from Seduced by a Wolf by Terry Spear
3. Cassandra Renfield from Jen Nadol’s The Mark (YA)
4. Cassie from Ice by Sarah Beth Durst (YA)
Other common names seem to be Faithe/Faith/Faythe and some variation, and Eve/Eva/Evie. OK maybe it’s not as much as I thought there was because the lists I came up with aren’t THAT long, but it feels like there are a lot. Am I crazy or what?
specficromantic 
Lol. No, you are not crazy. That is incredibly insightful and very interesting. Is this also a common trend with the male character names?
🙂 Well I hadn’t noticed it in male characters names, although “Damien” immediately springs to mind.
Wow, never thought about that but yes! Huh, freaky
I felt like there were a lot before I started writing the post but I couldn’t come up with that many examples, so this might be a tenuous hypothesis. It *feels* like there’s a lot though, doesn’t it?
Can you add Katsa and Katniss in the Kat names? There are a lot of common names out there and it can get confusing.
Yeah those count. I think someone commented on Katsa on one of my mirror blogs.
Kat… such a temptation to use a name that shortens to that in a story! 🙂 Seems to imply a girl who kicks ass. There’s all those cat traits – landing on their feet, agility, curiosity, nine lives, claws.. I think that’s why it’s popular.
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