What’s in a name?  Well the Black family are based on real people.  Don’t get me wrong, the characters in the book all have names which will be instantly familiar to my relatives, but that was the only part of them I stole, except for Aunty Ev’s smile.  That is real.

I put a lot into names, I often find the name is the key to bringing someone or something to life.  I think we all make associations with certain names too.  If we know a strong personality their name becomes synonymous with those characteristics, so you’ll never find a character in my worlds with a name which is instantly recognizable as a particular type, unless of course that was my point.

Names also go in cycles of popularity,  you can often date a character or a person by their name.  Today there is a certain trend of naming babies after famous people or characters from books.  Before Harry Potter there weren’t many Harry’s around as it was perceived to be an “old” name.

Then there are certain evergreen names which never really fall out of fashion, these are sometimes my favourite types of names to use.

The most popular names in England and Wales in 2012 according to are all fairly “normal” names.  Celebrities however seem to think that it is their job to create the weird and fantastical and then we the general public think we have to copy or emulate them.

So what was the strangest name you’ve seen and which is the one that makes you go “huh?” what were their parents thinking?