The name's taken already? CURSES! (Name Coincidences)

[Mindfire]

Has this ever happened to you? You spend hours- nay, days, ruminating on an original concept for your WIP and thinking up a name for it. Once you finally happen upon one that fits, you do a cursory google search and discover, to your dismay, that the name is already being used for something completely different. -_-

That's what just happened to me. I'm wondering if I should use the name anyway, or choose something different, which is going to be difficult because I've already gone through a dozen names.

Now in situations where you want to avoid getting your book mixed up with someone else's, mis-association with a popular franchise, or copyright infringement, changing your name is probably a good idea I admit. However, I doubt that anyone will get my soulfire, a magic system I came up with*, mixed up with Soulfire the fairly obscure (I'd never heard of it before now) comic book about fairies and cyborgs in the distant future.

Should I keep the name or change it? What's a general rule for these situations?




*In very crude terms, it's a kind of religious/spiritual pyromancy.

 

[Ailith]

Yes, it happens to me all the time! Sometimes I think that no matter what random letters you slap together, it's a word somewhere. So frustrating.

In the case of Soulfire, I think you should be fine because the meanings are quite different and it's clear you didn't take it verbatim from the comic.

 

[Devor]

Your use of the word is appropriate, and it's just a combination of two plain and normal words (as opposed to, like, Solfyre or something). I'm a little concerned about its use within the comic (it may also be their magic system, so far as I know), and whether there are too many similarities. But I think most likely you're fine using it.

 

[Mindfire]

A quick trademark search reveals that the trademark held is for (sic) "Michael Turner's Soulfire". Originally it was going to be called "Dragonfly" and be published by a different company, but that sank, so he created his own company and published it as " Michael Turner's Soulfire". So I guess there wouldn't be any trademark issues.

 

[Devor]

A quick trademark search reveals that the trademark held is for (sic) "Michael Turner's Soulfire". Originally it was going to be called "Dragonfly" and be published by a different company, but that sank, so he created his own company and published it as " Michael Turner's Soulfire". So I guess there wouldn't be any trademark issues.

No, none. If the word "Soulfire" was trademarked, you would still be pretty much in the clear for your purposes. I was only thinking about the reactions of people who might've read the comic. Sometimes things end up being more popular than you would expect within your specific audience. But you're probably fine.

 

[Penpilot]

Not a lawyer, but I think you'll be fine. If the magic is uniquely yours, and the name isn't completely unique like Devor said, you should be fine. Otherwise no one would be able to use Fireball ever again. FYI if name is a title for a book, it won't matter, no one can copyright a title.

 

[Steerpike]

If it is a title, however, that's when you run into potential trademark issues. Here, the name isn't being used a mark to begin with so it doesn't appear to be a problem.

 

[Ghost]

It's up to you. "soul" and "fire" are common, so there's bound to be similar names out there. (In fact, an Amazon search pulls up Soul Fire (as two different novels), SoulFire, Soulfire, SoulFire and Tears, Soulfires: Young Black Men on Love and Violence, Soul of the Fire, Soul of Fire, Souls on Fire, Soul on Fire, Firesoul, Fire Soul, Fire and Soul, Fire in the Soul, a YA series called Soulfire, and two comics called Soul Fire and Soulfire. I had to quit searching.)

If it bothers you, perhaps you could alter it a tiny bit. I didn't see The Soulfire or Soulsfire. Oddly enough, Soulburn only came up a few times in music but not in books. I wouldn't recommend changing it if there were only a a few similar titles or several that were outside my genre, but so many soulfires could cause confusion. Some of these results look like they could be out of print and/or unpopular, and a few are nonfiction. I don't think the comic would be much of an issue. The one that would concern me would actually be the YA series because the author might put more effort into branding.

Then again, if the word "soulfire" comes up in your book often, it might be best to go with that. It's like a pop song: people remember the hook.

 

[The Din]

I had the same problem and changed it, but that's just personal preference. I wasn't satisfied until I could do an advanced google search and not come up with a single match, so you might just say that I'm a little anal about such things. Have you tried Soulflame, Soulspark, Firesoul, etc?

In the end its up to you. Many people have assured me that the more common the name, the better it will sell, so finding a few matches isn't necessarily such bad thing.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

In a neat ironic twist, I was going to name my NIP Mindfire, but then someone decided to use that name on the forums

Actually, no, turns out another book titled "Mindfire" came out recently. Or rather, "Mind-Fire." Looks like something to do with space Nazis.

Mindfire wasn't the original title I was going to use; I had another one in mind but "Mindfire" I thought fit better. But now, I think I might use the original title again.

 

[Ghost]

Yeah, I was going to comment about the Mindfire thing, but I couldn't remember whose novel it was. There's a guy here with a novel named Ouroboros, too. I wouldn't be surprised to see chapters of Black Dragon in the Showcase.

I forgot to answer the question of whether this has happened to me or not. I had concepts for novels called The Red Queen and Heartstrings. Both turn up multiple results of in-print books. I've scrapped the first idea entirely, but the second is still viable. I don't know if I'll keep the name, but I'll worry about it when I have a manuscript in my hands.

 

[Ireth]

I have the same problem with Summer's Blood, the working title of one of my NIPs. There's a movie by that name with a completely different plot. The prequel, Winter's Queen is similar to some other titles I've seen, but not exact. I haven't yet seen anything else by the name of Low Road, which is kinda nice.

 

[Kit]

I had to change my MC's name when I did some research on the geographical setting and found that the bird I'd named her for does not exist on that continent.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Yeah, I was going to comment about the Mindfire thing, but I couldn't remember whose novel it was. There's a guy here with a novel named Ouroboros, too. I wouldn't be surprised to see chapters of Black Dragon in the Showcase.

Thankfully, the title I'm (probably) using for the novel has barely ever been used. (Only 88 hits on Google!)

 

[Caged Maiden]

I wouldn't be surprised to see chapters of Black Dragon in the Showcase.

Ha! Black Dragons are a HUGE part in two of my novels, but luckily I went with Dragon's Blood and Warrior's Heart for those two. I think fantasy has a lot of overlap because our genre has a limited subject matter, and there are so many things we all use in our work (whether the things themselves bear any resemblance or not). I've also given one of my characters the surname of Hawk (for Hawksrill, his hometown) and OMG the name Hawk is used in several books. Oh well... such is life when you use common things. But honestly, I don't worry about it very much unless it's an obvious rip-off, because using common names, monsters, or D&D type classes/ races are just a fact of life when you write fantasy. If you were to only use obscure things which have never been used before, you might end up with something unreadable. Don't sweat it. I like Soulfire. It conveys a feeling, and if you love it and it fits well with your story, you should use it guilt-free.

 

[The Dark One]

The name of my recently published book is THEM. I knew there was a band of that name but then a non-fiction book by Jon Ronson came out with the same name (which covered some vaguely similar territory). I'd been writing my book for years before JR's book came out and the name was perfect, so I decided not to change it. And let's face it, if someone is trying to sue you re your book, it's a pretty good problem to have.

I am a lawyer, but I daresay the intellectual property laws in Australia are slightly different from elsewhere. There's only copyright in expressions of ideas, not ideas themselves. I know my book is utterly different from anything else that's ever been done so I had no qualms about similar titles - and neither did the publisher.

 

[The Dark One]

I should add that copyright does not have to be established through publication. It exists in the instant the work is created. I was writing THEM since the late 90s and it's always had that title so as far as I'm concerned the copyright (to the extent that it can exist in a title) has been mine for a long time.

 

[Devor]

I should add that copyright does not have to be established through publication. It exists in the instant the work is created. I was writing THEM since the late 90s and it's always had that title so as far as I'm concerned the copyright (to the extent that it can exist in a title) has been mine for a long time.

Copyrights don't exist in a title, you'd have to get a Trademark to gain legal protections for a title.

 

[JCFarnham]

It think everyone who's any one has come upon this problem at some point in their writing life. In my case it was with the name Darksiders, the name of a race of humanoid "quantum teleporters" in my scifi universe. Knowing that it was something itself I changed it to Dusksiders... Still too close for me (and though I haven't googled it I would be surprised it that hasn't been used a billion times either.) Therefore we end up with "Duskers". (even that's probably been done, such is the nature of literature, but at least it's different enough from the moderately popular "darksiders" stuff.)

Which ever way I put it they're hardly main plot points, its never used as a title.. they exist with in the setting as one or two secondary characters.

I'd feel lazy if I used that name in it's original form, that's the one reason I had to alter it.

Now if the titles of my novels were used that's a different matter entirely...

 

[Steerpike]

Copyrights don't exist in a title, you'd have to get a Trademark to gain legal protections for a title.

Yes. And with trademarks it doesn't necessarily matter that one came up with a title long before an existing trademark was in place. So if there were a trademark issue, the creation date of the title wouldn't matter in this case. But it doesn't sound like there is a trademark to worry about here.