Lyra Belacqua (The Golden Compass): I love this little hotheaded, stubborn, intelligent girl so much that I'd love to name a child after her and hope she could be nearly as delightful and challenging as her namesake.
Sabriel (Sabriel): Her strength and resourcefulness make her a wonderful role model for a little girl to look up to...and the name is familiar and yet different enough to be special.
Emma Woodhouse (Emma): A little more morally complex of a heroine, Emma is handsome and clever...and spoiled and selfish and convinced of her own rightness even when she probably shouldn't be. But she's charming and she learns a lesson by the end and no one's perfect, right?
Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre): I didn't expect much when I read this one a few years ago...gothic drama has not tended to light my fire. But I really liked it, and Jane herself is strong and bright and while Mr. Rochester is problematic, Jane herself is very much rootable-for.
Natasha Rostova (War and Peace): I LOVED Natasha for most of the (long) runtime, so to speak, of this classic that more people should actually tackle. She's a shining presence in the midst of a lot of very Russian sturm-und-drang (I know that's German, but I don't know what the equivalent would be in Russian). Like many, I'm disappointed in how the best character ended up...if you want to know why, you should read it!
Daine Sarassri (Wild Magic): I never got into much else in the Tamora Pierce bibliography, but I think it's because none of her other heroine spoke to me the way that Wild Magic's Daine did. Literally raised (in part) by wolves, she's connected to nature and animals and spunky and brave and great.
Sherlock Holmes (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes): He doesn't seem to be much of a functional human, but damn Sherlock is clever and interesting and it's weird but not too weird of a name for a kid, right?
Rhett Butler (Gone With The Wind): I will say that he's not as dashing on the page as he is on the screen, but it would have been really hard to measure up to Clark Gable at maximum charisma no matter what. And even on the page, he's still way better than Scarlett.
Samwise Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings): He's not the protagonist of LOTR, but I would argue that steadfast, truehearted Samwise is the hero. When I first read the books as a teenager I found him an irritating tag-a-long, but as you get older you see that the power of his devotion to his friend is the power that really destroys the Ring at the end.
Tyrion Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire): There are so many indelible characters in this series that it's hard to pick just one. But to name a child after? The deliberate, strategic Tyrion, who recognizes that his body isn't going to be what gains him the respect he craves and develops his brain instead.
I use to have a cat named Samwise! Great List :D My Top Ten Tuesday!
ReplyDeleteSamwise is a great cat name!
DeleteYes to Sam! I love Samwise so much, he's the most loyal friend ever. I absolutely adore Pippin, but I don't think I could ever name a child Pippin...
ReplyDeletePippin would be an adorable name for a dog, though!
DeleteGreat list! I especially like your choice of Lyra. I love the character and the name :)
ReplyDeleteIt's such a pretty-sounding name, and she's easily one of my all-time favorite characters!
DeleteI like Lyra and Sabriel and Natasha--and Tyrion rocks--I also like Cedric--from Harry Potter of course-:)
ReplyDeleteI love Natasha so much but I don't like the way it sounds with my last name, so I don't think that one will get actually used! Cedric is a great name, but it's one of those names that sounds so British to me (like Nigel) it's hard to think about naming an American kid that
DeleteLyra is such a pretty name!
ReplyDeleteMy TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/top-ten-tuesday-79/
It's so musical sounding to me...maybe because it sounds kind of like "lyric" but with that softer ending
DeleteI feel like there is definitely going to be a Tyrion in my son's class in the future. Great character with a great name!
ReplyDeleteThere are so many names in those books that sound like just off versions of regular names (Eddard, Rickon) and then ones that are great but too unwieldy (Danaerys, Melisandre). Tyrion is one of the ones that's at a nice sweet spot in the middle AND he's such a fantastic character that I think it'll be popular!
DeleteI really like the name Sherlock. I once had a cat named Houdini. Here is my list http://videoclimbersvariations.blogspot.com/2016/10/top-ten-tuesday-ten-characters-i-would.html
ReplyDeleteHoudini is a great name for a cat! My one beef with Sherlock is that it doesn't easily lend itself to a nickname...
Delete