I believe that Jerry Pournelle once said that while he thinks long and hard about the names of his major characters, he uses the phone book for the names of minor characters.

Another question about names for The Man and the other authors, if I may: Have any of you had issues with a 'real-life' person complaining about the character that had 'their' name?
For example if some CPA from Des Moine named Jeremy Bolton were to complain. Would it be trivial? Serious?
Just something I've wondered about since I read a charactor with my name in a book -- he was a Good Guy so I didn't mind, but . . .

Thanks!!

Sev

Another question about names for The Man and the other authors, if I may: Have any of you had issues with a 'real-life' person complaining about the character that had 'their' name?
For example if some CPA from Des Moine named Jeremy Bolton were to complain. Would it be trivial? Serious?
Just something I've wondered about since I read a charactor with my name in a book -- he was a Good Guy so I didn't mind, but . . .

Thanks!!

Sev

I would imagine that some people wouldn't know, some people wouldn't care, and some people would get a kick out of it.

For example, there's a character in the Harry Potter novels named Peter Pettigrew -- also known as "Wormtail." Navy Commander "Pete" Pettigrew was a flying consultant for the movie Top Gun.

Ken V.