Do You Mind Unusual Names?

[Iris-Grimoire]

That's still not very realistic, honestly. There's immigrants, there's parents who really like a certain culture, there's people who don't actually look up traditional names(or use alternate spelliongs) and just go for whoever is currently famous on TV. Even in Brazil where we latinize a ton of terms, I still have plenty of acquaintances with unusual or foreign names.
I do get your point though, you can't have everyone in your Canada setting have japanese names or people question if you just didn't know how to write another location. But a handful in the middle that are foreign and they're still native to the city/country isn't too bad!

[HGohwell]

I do get your point though,

Just to be super clear, this isn't my advice, it's just something I keep seeing on a lot of how to create character advice articles and videos and I wanted to see if it was a real thing these days or outdated but still parroted like that "said is dead" advice.

you can't have everyone in your Canada setting have japanese names

Yeah, this is sorta a sign of a beginner writer in my mind. They should be situation appropriate.

While the advice is also pointed towards a western audience, well, I do live in a western country and there's one person out of the 20 I work with that is a Jack, Paul. John. I think it's pretty outdated. To echo Diego, a more realistic approach is pulling from multiple countries/ cultures who have their own Jacks, Johns and Marys.

I think it's mostly directed at western audiences because most the people giving advice are English speaking and assuming you're writing for an English speaking audience. As I mentioned above, it's the Japanese equivalent would be giving everyone common Japanese names. I don't think it's supposed to be anything about immigrants or foreign names so much as if you've got a group of girls rather than calling them Duchess, Alison, Cassandra and Minerva use more common standard names like Sarah, Anne, Rachel and Mary.

[DiegoPalacios]

Some people are from the same family, a common last name makes sense in those cases.

[scribesunlimited]

I don't think a name is that important that you have to think readers will like or not like them.

I've thought some names were funny-sounding or weird, but it doesn't hamper me from cheering them on, or rooting them to a swift demise. The names don't matter. What matters are the characters themselves, at least in my professional opinion.

[allenT]

I do have unusual names for my comic characters, but 1st it has to be pronounce-able. 2nd is to be memorable or regconizable(also fun). And 3rd is to be short. I don't have a character name that has more than 4 syllables.

[Legendofgenii]

I'm trying not to go too crazy with the names (and place names etc.) Though I've failed at the first hurdle with Genii (pronounced Gen-Eye in my story). Lol!

I have names like Gemma, Haden, Erras and Bellah which are quite simple. Even the God's names - Aatma, Ruuma, Varrah etc. aren't too difficult to say (hopefully!?)

[sartinjacqueline05]

I'm definately cool with unusual names. I also like normal names too of course. My comic's world is a sort of a mix of fantasy and modern world. My main character's name is very unusual and that's because i wanted it like that when I first created him. Then some of my other characters have normal names while monster characters also have unusual names. For me it depends on the character. I have actually had thoughts in the past of renaming Regro but then i decided against that because i can't see him being called anything else.

[naoro_san]

I don't really care about names, but I think it's good to have some coherency: like if the story takes place in some real non-English country, it would be weird if all characters have English names. It's not something that would bother me, but it would be a nice detail if characters had regional names.

On my side, I like using weird names, but I'm doing a fantasy comic so: my world, my rules my names. At the end I combine real names with invented ones. But if I came up with a new name I try to make it easy to remember.
Currently my only characters whose names have been revealed are Gary and Mike, so I haven't gone crazy yet.

[Phantomlight]

My name constantly gets misspelled. People even put a letter that doesn't even sound like it's in my name >.> Like, why? How the heck did you hear that letter in my name? HOW? I always wonder if they have bionic hearing or something xD

[DualDragons]

Some people even gave me a completely different name because they just couldn't comprehend mine

[arayakim]

To be honest, I'm far more concerned with making my character names memorable rather than conforming it to my audience's naming traditions. I don't particularly mind if a character is named John Smith or if he's named Sayidh El Machismo the Fourth Twice Removed. Just as long as everyone else in the series repeats it often and emphatically, to help the reader remember. Harry Potter is a fairly non-descript name, but it's memorable precisely because it's literally the title of the book series, and every character in the books refers to him by his full name very often.

"Oh, I'm Harry. Harry Potter."

"Blimey, you're Harry Potter."

"Bless my soul, it's Harry Potter!"

"Ah, Harry Potter. Our newest celebrity."

"Bring me Harry Potter!"

Gee, I wonder who that guy is? Oh he's Harry Potter? Thanks, LITERALLY EVERYONE.

When it comes to my own comic, The Remarkable Rabbit Boy, I try my best to make my character names memorable too:

The Remarkable Rabbit Boy

Instead of trying to conform to naming traditions with my audience, I'm personally a big fan of naming characters based on their "thing". That is to say, the thing that basically defines them as a character. It makes it far easier for readers to remember, since the names end up pretty obvious. I also try to repeat the names as often as I can.

For example:

Rabbit Boy - the titular character. A 12-year-old boy with rabbit ears, who has powerful legs and the ability to jump ridiculously high.

Foxline - a woman with fox ears and a fox tail, with control over the bandages lining her arms.

Hyperion Man - Light City's most powerful hero, he can shoot light beams, and is named after the Greek Titan of Light

Bloodarm - a powerful villain with the power to control blood, who has a massive arm made entirely of blood.

Goliathan - a massive entity that Rabbit Boy thinks is his conscience.

Ms. Pencil - Hyperion Man's secretary, whose hair looks like a pencil eraser.

[Llyrel]

I don't mind unusual names... as long as they make sense I think the setting of a story does play a part in this: as somebody else mentioned, if you have an all-American cast yet for some reason they all have Japanese names, I'll be a bit "eh" about it. Same goes for characters having all English names when the story is set in a non-English speaking country. If you have a "canon" explanation for it (e.g. characters being immigrants, having a foreign parent or being exchange students from a different country) then go for it! Otherwise, better stick to more regular names and limit the "odd" names to fewer characters

For my own stories, I mostly tend to stick to neutral names that I like and that I think would fit a certain character. Sometimes I will pick a somewhat "unusual" -but still existing- spelling (e.g. Eljas instead of Elias) because I like the pronunciation better, but I always try to find an explanation for it (for Eljas, that'd be having a Finnish mom :D).

As for fantasy names, I like unusual stuff/completely made-up names... but please, make them pronounceable D: the moment I see stuff like Xztgrrsktphrs is the moment I give up XD

[JeanGuillet]

Elmer is a great name. Stealing for my next book. dang. Elmer. It's wonderful. think of all the psychological issues he's got because his hipster parents wanted to name him something old-fashioned. you have good points about names though, I heartily agree.

[cherrystark]

Do it!!! It's also really close to Elmo. That can be Elmer's brother's name.

[rifftiff]

I think it depends on the genre. For example, the strange names in the Harry Potter series are meant to sound strange and magical. It also works if you're writing some kind of fun comedy/satire and the name is meant to reflect certain things about the character.
But generally a lot of those unusual names just sound fake and unnatural, like the author gave that name to specifically make the character seem mysterious or special. When in reality the parents of the character would most likely give a normal name unless they had a specific reason to name them that way (they're hippies or Wiccan or die-hard fans of some series, etc.).

[carreonaiwille]

unless they had a specific reason to name them that way

A bit of a segue, but reminds me of my cousins and a student I know having Japanese names (none had Japanese ancestry). One student I encountered was named after a famous Mexicanovela character. Another named after an anime character. A girl I met once shares a name with a famous brand of milk.

[MeltingCORE]

I love unusual names as long as they fit into the world of the story, personally!