Character Names Derived From Real Life Friends

[Toby Johnson]

sure wy not, but make sure that they resemble the person in real life, that'd be a cool little nod to your freinds

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

wy

...

 

[Eosphorus]

It's a risky move. I prefer not to do it, personally. Not unless I'm using the name of a friend I haven't seen in many years. I know of no authors who do use their friend's names, but there must be some...

 

[Prince of Spires]

I know of no authors who do use their friend's names, but there must be some...

Brandon Sanderson does. But, and I think that's the important thing, he does so at their request. He's mentioned multiple times that the bridge 4 crew is mainly based on friends. Either names or parts of personalities.

There's nothing wrong with putting your friends in your books. But I would always ask permission or do so at their request, though they might die a horrible death as a result...

Of course, I might put parts of people in my books. Not literal parts, but pieces of personalities. For instance, I recently learned that one of my friends has an eidetic memory, and we had an interesting chat about how she percieves memories. I might use something like that for a character in a book. In such a case, I wouldn't ask for permission, since the rest of the character would be very different.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

I haven't done it on purpose, but recently did it unintentionally with a minor character. The protagonist of one of my stories has an older brother, who's in the story mainly as part of the background (she has a family! Big brother took the ordinary life path they were expecting of their children, Character is in some conflict because she doesn't want that for herself!) I gave him a very, very common name (think "John"), and well after I'd written that, I remembered that I knew a slightly older boy with that name when I was a very young child, and while I didn't have an older brother myself, "John" was something of a big brother figure.

It's such a common name, and the characters ended up being so different, that even if John from my childhood were to read that story, I doubt he'd make the connection.