The Trouble with Names

My MC - Evil Overlord in training - is asserting her personality where it is not wanted. She gleefully informed me several weeks ago that I had a choice of calling her either Agatha or Morgaine, and that no amount of protest on my part will convince her to give quarter and accept another name.

And so the Naming Woes, which I had prayed I would never have to suffer, began.

"Morgaine" is too heavy a name, I argue, and what place does "Agatha" have among "Wynne"s and "Guinevere"s and "Morcant"s? Giggling, she replies, "Dunno!" and skips off to plan world domination while I scour the Internet, desperate to find a new name. I will not, I tell myself, give in to Agatha. It's a name for Victorian parlours and morning rooms, not the steam-washed world of ash through which this... this... MC is to wreak her path of anarchy. "You," I say (for I absolutely refuse to call her Agatha) "what about Christabel?" I like this name. It's noble, dignified, ironic in the light of the MC's story. And besides, it's the title of a Gothic poem. Perfect, no?

She sidles up to me and glances over my shoulder at the screen. "That would probably be like naming a guy Christopher before the birth of Christ," she says. "It would be weird if my name meant 'beautiful Christian' and Christianity doesn't even exist in the Fantasy World #1937 I live in. I dunno, you think that's kinda weird?" She flashes me a brilliant smile. "I do."

Tears sting the corners of my eyes. "Are you aware just how long it took me to decide on that name, A-- Evil Overlord person?"

Her smiles widens. "Nope!"

"Are you aware that you are slowly destroying my enthusiasm for this story?"

She claps her hands. "If I was, you'd've stop writing about me and all my friends, and you'd be writing about talking mice in airships by now." And with that she spins on her heels and dances from the room, calling over her shoulder, "And now I'm off to find myself a goblin army! Bye, All Mighty Author person!"

I sit staring at the computer screen for the next few minutes.

After a while, the Chosen One of my story sidles up to me and remarks, "You know, I've been thinking about my name. What about - wait for it! - Hero? Isn't that just cool?"

I can see the gleam of his teeth winking at me from the corner of my eye. I say, in a monotone, "Isn't that a bit obvious?"

"Oh, not at all!" he exclaims. "I especially like that 'o' at the end. Hero. He-ro. Mmm." He smiles dreamily at the ceiling.

I lay my head on the desk. I was not meant for this.

(cross posted from the NaNoWriMo forums, :])