Top Ten Tuesday #20: Favorite Character Names

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme created by The Broke and The Bookish. Each week the girls at B&B think up a fun theme, and participating bloggers post their favorite 10 books in that category. This week's theme is

Top Ten Favorite & Unique Character Names

This was a tough week for me. I've been thinking for months, and I just have had the hardest time thinking of characters whose names really stood out to me. I think it's hard because so many names are reused. That's not a bad thing, and it doesn't mean that the characters themselves don't stand out, but it does mean that it's hard to be unique without being weird. Because, for me, spelling a name differently from its traditional does not make it unique. It makes you kinda desperate to be unique without having the imagination to do so. Just sayin'. If you don't agree with me, watch this video, and then tell me you didn't roll your eyes from that nonsense. Anywho, onto my abbreviated picks this week (I told you I had a hard time!).

8. Johnafter from Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols. No, that is not a typo. One of the jokes from the novel is that John's nickname in high school was Johnafter. I am so in love with him it isn't funny.

7. Jack Dandy from Steampunk Chronicles by Kady Cross. The name totally fits this crime lord of Whitechapel. He's a gentleman by birth, but he's a naughty boy indeed, and that's fine and dandy with me! :P

6. Miss Texas Taylor Renee Crystal Hawkins from Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. Oh, heavens. I just can't even with this book and this name and Libba's accent while saying this name in the audiobook.

5. Ryan Dean West from Winger by Andrew Smith. Not Ryan. Not Dean. It's Ryan Dean. This name is normal but ridiculous, and I love it.

4. The Darkling from The Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. It drives me a little mad that the Darkling doesn't have a "real" name yet, but at the same time, it fits the man who is a complete mystery.

3. W. W. Hale the fifth from the Heist Society series by Ally Carter. I know Ally's busy with Embassy Row right now, but I need her to hurry up and work on Heist 4 so that I can get closer to discover Hale's full name!

2. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore from Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Because somehow the world most normal-seeming name turned this whole thing from eccentric to fits-o-giggle silly when thrown in as a third middle name. Especially when he emphasized it so much in the movies.

Award for craziest, most convoluted, most memorable and yet confusing-to-the-point-of-forgetting-what-it-really-is name goes to: Jonathan Christopher Jace Wayland Morgenstern Herondale Lightwood from The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. I like Cassie and TMI and Jace, but at this point, I think she adds the names just to f--- with us.