Since several people have asked me about it, I thought I’d blog about Kate’s name. She has lots of them. Or, rather, she has lots of nicknames.
I love nicknames. I think my using them is a wish fulfillment thing, because I never had one when I was a kid—you can’t do much with Amy. And since that left me with a weird sense of deprivation, I piled nicknames on my characters. For me, a nickname is a term of endearment. So Vincent got a couple (Jules calls him “Vince” and Ambrose calls him “Vin” – a point that helped me clarify who was who when Jules possessed Ambrose’s body). And Kate got a lot.
Here is the deleted part of DIE FOR ME that explains that her name is actually just Kate, not Katya as some have guessed. (It was, as you will see, too long and explanatory, thus it’s deletedness!) So for the record…
My mom had named Georgia after the state she grew up in, and gave her the middle name “Frances” after her own Mom’s name. In the good old Southern tradition, I got my mom’s last name “Beaumont” as my middle name, but my first name was as normal-sounding as they came. “Kate.” Georgia got both the exotic name and the knockout looks.
However, besides my mom, no one actually called me Kate. Dad called me “princesse”, Georgia called me “Katie-Bean”, or just “Bean”, and Mamie called me “Katya.” All that to say, I answer to almost anything.
6 Comments to Trivial Pursuit
by Parisbug - On November 16, 2011
We discovered the other day that Freya also recognizes her nicknames & responds to them–sadly I never had plans for her to answer to ‘Sweetpea’ & ‘Muffin’….doh. We won’t go into my nicknames, I’ll save that for dinner entertainment :p
Glad to see you living vicariously through your own writing though….carry on.
by Anne Riley - On November 17, 2011
My MC’s name is Rosemary, but most people call her Rosie. Her dad calls her Rosebud. (There’s not much you can do with the name Anne, either.)
by Geraldine Frost - On November 20, 2011
With a name as long as mine ‘Geraldine’, it took me awhile to even spell it correctly! I got all sorts of nicknames. From Jellybean to Gerry.
Amy suits you perfectly (comes from the old French ‘Amee’). People with this name are creative and good at expressing themselves and are drawn to the arts. (Got this description from a baby name website)
by amy - On November 21, 2011
Anne – so you like giving nicknames too! And Geraldine – your name is perfect for nicknames. And I didn’t know that about my name (besides it coming from the French “beloved”). How fun!
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