Why can’t my name be Faith Hunter?

IF YOU ARE MY RELATIVE PLEASE TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND HOLD ON JUST ONE SECOND HERE.

I love my family. I feel very attached to my family and my heritage, such as it is, and I have no desire to abandon my real last name or reject my family or anything like that. Okay? Great.

However:

If I ever were to publish a book (Ha! That’s a biiiig if), I would probably publish under a pseudonym. Or at least change my last name. Because, honestly, my names don’t go well together. They don’t sound right. I can’t really explain it. But they don’t flow.

Faith Hunter is an awesome name. Although perhaps a bit on the literal side – people already make haha-your-name-is-a-real-word jokes around me (seriously. I’ve heard them all), probably with a real-word last name it would be worse. Also there is already an author named Faith Hunter, which is why I started thinking about all of this in the first place.

This also makes me think about getting married (although that would be a long time into the future)- I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to have my name flow better if that were possible, but I don’t want to change my name when I get married.

Dilemmas.

I Collect Names

I’ve always been a collector, although my mother might have a stronger term for it…anyway, I collect names. It’s probably because naming things is one of the hardest and most stressful parts of writing for me. And titles. I can never think of titles.

So anyway when I hear a name I like, or read one, I add it to my list, in the hopes that one day when I need a name the perfect one will be right there, waiting for me.

The reason I’m mentioning this now is because the other day I was in photography class, and we were looking at some photos by a largely undiscovered 50s street photographer named Vivian Maier. (If you’re at all interested in photography, take a look – they’re very good photos) One girl came in a little late and asked me who the photographer was.

I said, almost immediately, “Victoria Harvey”. I really have no idea where that came from. But it was a pretty good sounding name, and the fact that it had spontaneously popped out of my mouth had almost a destined feel to it. Needless to say, it went on the list.

The Name Game

I’m having SERIOUS issues coming up with a name for my FMC (that would be female main character, for those of you who didn’t know).
It has been one name, then another name, back to the first name, a third name…back and forth so often that I’m sick of it. I feel bad for this poor girl – she can’t even be sure of what her name is. How can she function as a full-fledged character?
So, the name list currently stands at, in no particular order:
-Ithelle
-Kelisin
-Elissa
with Elie being a nickname for any of them. I’d love to know what you guys think. Of course, I’m also open to other suggestions.
Which is your favorite?

Pennsylvania

…is a good place to steal names. Some of those little towns are just begging to used in the book.
-Merion
-Narberth
-Sansom (actually a street name – those are good too)
-Elwyn
-Cynwyd (this is SO elvish)
-Radnor
Wynnewood is also a direct lift. I hope I don’t have to change these too much; I really like them!
Looking at these, “wy” seems to be a common elvish construct. Elwyn, Cynwyd and Wynnewood all strike me as elvish or elvish-derived place names. I’ll have to work that into some of their proper names as well.