Quote:
Originally Posted by VydorScope
If you use common names in your book, like John, Mike, etc then there is no point in checking. If you use "alien" names, or other "unique" names you might want to check. You might come up with a cool name for the hero of your story, and choose something like Drizzt Do'Urden and well... Google it. 
If you and I both have a Mike Johnson in our stories no one will care, but if we both have Drizzt Do'Urden that would raise some eyebrows I bet. |
The chance of a "naming collision" (to use a computer term) when using made-up names is, however, much lower than with real names. Further, if you're writing in a genre, you should be doing your research about that genre -- which would mean being familiar with the major characters of the genre.
Being familiar with the major characters does more than simply let you avoid naming collisions -- it lets you choose names to bring up associations in your readers' heads. For example, in his "Lord Darcy" stories, Randall Garrett named a character who was a wizard "Sir Lyon Gandolphus Grey", knowing full well that readers would recognize the reference... and that that reference would set up certain expectations about the character.
Another instance is in Rick Cook's "Wizardry" series, where an evil sorcerer is named "Toth-Set-Ra". To anyone familiar with Conan, that reference sets up a number of things about the character.
Depending on the genre you're writing in, even "common names" can be things you might want to avoid. If you're writing a spy novel, you might want to avoid naming your protagonist "James" or any variant thereof, for example. If you're familiar with the genre, you'll know that... and if you're not, you probably shouldn't be writing a novel in the genre.
Even with familiarity and Google, though, you can still wind up with someone else giving a character a similar name. To give a real-world example, Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series wound up with a lot of comparisons to Harry Potter, because they're both wizards named Harry. When Butcher began writing the series, though, the first Harry Potter book hadn't been published yet, so even a Google search for "wizard harry" wouldn't have saved him from the comparisons.