Alright, so I got an ask about old/scrapped names of the characters… But I didn't expect the list to be this long, so I decided to make this into a development post and also talk about my naming process (except some juicy details I need to keep secret though, hehe).
Anyway, a bit of context for my early naming process: In the original first draft, Lungsod City was a futuristic setting. Everyone had two names: Assigned birth names, or legal names given to people by the government (meant to be a comparison to how authors assign characters their names), and personal nicknames.
This meant that Patrick, Wayne, and Roselyna have two names, and if Roselyna had to introduce herself, she'd say, "Roselyna, nickname" or "Primrose, legal". Their legal names were stored in a phone/ID device called P-cards, which also double as a debit card since there's no physical currency anymore.
For Wayne and Rosie specifically (the original twins in the first draft), I chose their nicknames first, then I worked backwards to choose their assigned name. This isn't the case anymore of course (I've also stopped naming characters after my friends), but it's become tradition for me that each character should have at least one nickname, and anyone who doesn't is just a minor background character.
With that said, here's an extensive list of all the name changes I can remember:
Patrick: Paddy had Maverick as a placeholder name during the early outlining phase, but I settled with Patrick because I like Paddy as a nickname, especially because it rhymes with daddy. I think I was considering Theodore too, so that became his first name. And of course Paddy can also be Patricia now.
Wayne: Wayne's original name was Nyco because reasons, but that also didn't survive the outlining phase. I don't recall where Wayne even came from, but I picked Thomas as his assigned name because it means "twin". As for why I picked Ryan, you can probably figure out why if you know the current origin story of Wayne's nickname (which you learn by choosing him as your bestfriend).
Roselyna: Roselyna was just simply Rose in the first draft. Anyway, it's a very special name to me, and I wanted to change it to Roselyn to make it a lil prettier. I used it as a name for several characters, and even in some games I was playing. It's a pretty common name, so I was forced to think of variations of the name when it was taken already. I remember liking the spelling of Rosalynne too, but Roselyna just sounds better (and apparently hard for some people to spell, as I've realized). 😅
I went with Primrose for her assigned name, which eventually led me to "Primrose Evelyn", which was sort of a tiny nod to Primrose Everdeen from The Hunger Games (which was big at the time, not that I care much for it). So her nickname became a portmanteau, but I couldn't decide for the longest time whether I wanted it to be Evelyna, Everlyn, or Everlyna, until recently when I just decided to make the 'a' in Roselyna come from her middle name, Agustin (which was previously Flores).
Maggie: From the start, I wanted her to name to start with M/sound similar to mommy. And Maggie was the obvious choice because I don't like how Maddie sounds like. For her assigned name, I briefly considered Magdalene, but I knew someone in elementary named Marjorie, and I liked it a lot (plus it's a little less common than the other candidates).
MC's Dad: Aka, Wayne and Roselyna's original dad. Unfortunately I can't mention it because it implies some spoilery events about IAC, but I can safely say that I scrapped that name and event very early in the rewrites (it's not one of the characters you meet, it's hard to explain). Part of the reason you'll be able to choose the name of MC's dad in the next update, is that I haven't really settled on a name for him either. Although I was considering David and Daniel (two of the preset names) because like Maggie, I want his name to start with D/sound similar to daddy.
Julie: I think Julie came from a friend's character I was RPing with, and Wayne got used to calling her Mama Julie. Or at least, it was a big influence why I settled with Julie. It really only became Juliette relatively recently because of the whole nickname thing. I just chose Anne as her second name because it sounds nice and simple, then I realized it sounds nice with Maggie too.
Robert: Apparently, Julie and Robert were originally unnamed in the first draft. But other than that, he didn't have any name changes, other than me giving him Anthony as a second given name.
At this point before the big rewrite, everyone above just had the surname Dela Cruz, since I wanted them to have a common surname. I ony changed it to Villanueva after the rewrites.
Lily: Lily and JM came about because Wayne and Rosie needed to have a friend group at school, and during their creation process, making them have the opposite of W&R's personalities just seemed to fit them perfectly. I'm also unsure why I picked Lily's name exactly, but I think I added "anne" to Lily because of the nickname thing. Her original surname was Concepcion, which I have now given to Rosie's friend, Abigail (who was part of the early iterations of the friend group, before she got repurposed because there's too many).
And since I'm on the topic, I was also planning to add another friend nicknamed Junjun (because double syllable nicknames are common here) …and I just realized, Lily's secret nickname actually fulfills the double syllable nickname (you can discover it if you choose her as your BFF).
JM: When I was thinking of friend names for Wayne and Rosie, I also wanted a nickname with just two initials. They had a friend called RJ at some point, and JM was originally just "Michael", and I guess I kinda merged the two name concepts and ended up with JM. Him becoming a junior was mostly a random idea because I thought it sounded nice with his name, but it gave him more conflict fuel with his dad so I kept it. Maybe RJ still wanted to be a part of his name as "jr", hehe.
With JM's dad now being Lungsod City's vice mayor, I've since changed their names to "John Jesse Michael" (something I've had in my notes for a while now), and changed his dad's nickname from Mike to Jesse.
Beatrice: My old notes say Beatrice's original name was Angelica. I don't remember that, but I guess I wanted it to be ironic. Brandon only came later when I decided to make B gender-selectable/a crush option. Not much story to their names, other than it just fit the vibes I was looking for. Maybe I subconsciously gave them 'B' names because they're bullies, but I dunno.
Nestor: His original name was Robin, since he owns a bird pet shop and needed to have a bird-related name. I eventually changed it to Nestor (esp. because his favorite birds are parrots), which accidentally gave me the greatest pun ever.
Mary: Mary's full name probably had the most number of candidates. I had a full page of notes dedicated to possible names for Mary, but you don't need to know all of that, hehe.
Mariano/Josephine: Mariano's original placeholder name was Christopher, based on one of my friend's characters who I RP'd with, along with Josephine (who 8 year old Rosie became surprisingly close to and was the reason she became less bratty). I got the blessing to use Josephine as her mom's name, and with Rosie's new backstory of having been found in a church, I just had to make her dad's name Mariano (and their surname Del Rosario). As it's pointed out in MC's diary, it's the opposite gender versions of Mary and Joseph. In the next update his nickname will be Mario so it's more apparent.
JM's Mom: I didn't remember this until I found some old notes, but JM's mom's original name was Luzviminda, which is a portmanteau name of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao (the three major island groups in the Philippines). You don't actually meet her until Volume 5 in JM's story world, so I can't say much about her yet.
Lily's Moms: Lily actually had both dads instead of moms at one point, but her parents didn't have names until I was forced, when I wrote their diary entries. I'm changing Richie's nickname to Rickie in the next update, but I picked Richelle Dalisay for Police-Mom's name as a shout to Ang Probinsyano. I'm also changing Computer-Mom's name from Jezebel/Belle to Danica/Dani because it just fit her better, now that I've written a scene with them.
Ma'am Bianes: As you might've seen from the Super School Bus game, she was previously Mrs. Agustin. I did choose her surname after one of my teachers in elementary, who I distinctly remember saying the "be honest" joke… although unfortunately I don't remember much else about her besides that. There was also a Miss Nelson in the first draft, but she was a background character and Rosie didn't like her, so I wouldn't say they're the same character. (Miss Mean Chin was in the first draft too, who's a reference to Miss Minchin.)
Raven: Her original name was Raybie, and it's a little strange because I derived it from my friend's names (something I liked to do a lot because I was very unoriginal). The spelling always seemed off to me, so I changed it to Ravie. And because I like portmanteau nicknames, her name became Raven Bianca.
Chamyrrha: I also got the blessing to use Cham's name from a friend I RP'd with, although I changed the spelling from Chamirra. Her last name was Tenebrae before I decided to drop it entirely because it doesn't make sense for her to have a last name. At one point, Cham was actually one of Wayne's classmates at school.
***
Anyway, I think that's all the characters for now. Anyone I didn't mention means they always had that name.
I'll reblog this post later in the IAC blog with the name changes of the characters in IAC and Wayne's story world!
Listen, it doesn’t matter how good or bad you think you are at coming up with titles for stories/books. Not everything has to have a title right away. However, if you do come up with a title before you start writing your story, remember that it is okay to change it as many times as is necessary before you find the right one. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this process. You are not less of a writer for not being able to come up with a great title right away.
Sometimes, it's just fun to see how accurate their names are. A thesaurus just describes their personality and I love that Hobb uses this to its full advantage.
Some spellings are different for obvious reasons.
...Patience is actually pretty true to her name. Fitz was just being a boob
Shrewd- Farsighted makes me chuckle
www.thesaurus.com is fun
