I have a character but as yet he has no name; his parents were Danish so I’ve been looking through lists of Danish surnames to see which might fit. The trouble is, names sometimes have associations which might not be apparent to people outside the culture.
In my just published novel ‘Raddy and Syl’, the main character Thomas is looking for a missing woman called Jane Smith, he even looks her up on a genealogical site, MyTimeMachine…
Was there any such person as Jane? Jane Smith, it was such a nondescript name, not being rude to anyone who is called Jane, it’s sort of like a universal, like John Smith… I had looked up Jane Smith on MyTimeMachine and there were nearly eight thousand of them born in roughly the age I thought she might be.
Later he is discussing the situation with his wife, Kylie:
To me it sounded as if Jane was a real person… but there was definitely something odd about the story…
“I’m sure there was a real Jane,” I said when I’d gone through all that I’d been told .
“But was she really Jane?”
I looked to Kylie and my mouth sort of dropped open because as usual she is so amazingly wise and perceptive…
“It sounds to me as if she was hiding herself… none of anything she said could identify her… I don’t mean she was lying, but maybe she was just living in that nice friendly moment when they talked about shoes and celebs and diets and stuff… so maybe Jane Smith wasn’t her real name… I mean how many Jane Smiths are there? It must be the most common name ever!”
I’m sure readers would understand that the name Jane Smith would have certain connotations, but if my character was from a different country, how could I be sure that calling him Pierre Blanc or Jean Dupont wouldn’t have some other association attached to it?
Maybe I should rethink the character being Danish… or maybe I should consult a Danish friend!
If you are interested in knowing whether Thomas found Jane Smith, you can read his story, published as an e-book:
Lois Elsden 
I seem to recall reading somewhere that over 50% of all Danish people are called either Hansen or Nielsen.
Disclaimer – that might not be the actual figures, but it is something along those lines.
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Oooh, thank you for that! very helpful!
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