forum To name or not to name (Alex or Michael)

Started April 28, 2018 by @Lupout

tune

So I have a character, he's kind of comic relief, meets dork, meets stand up guy. His original name was always Alex, but my book is fantasy taking place in the normal world, kind of like the mortal instruments, buffy the vampire slayer or percy jackson. What else do these serieses have in common besides a shared genre you ask? A background character named Alexander. (Alec, Xander, and Alex respectively.) So the question is, do I switch his name to Michael which I feel kind of works for him. (Not to mention that it would help avoid confusion and not add a 45th comic relief character named Alexander to the world), or keep him as Alex because that was his original name in my mind.

Here’s what I always do: if you try to think of the character as Michael and keep having the name Alex pop up into your head, keep it as Alex. If not, Michael away!!

Alright fair enough, he'll probably always be Alex to me, so Alex it is :)

Okay so this is dumb and not nearly as good as @@jyandor said, but.
I have a character named Alex and a character named Michael.
Your Alex kind of sounds like mine, so I think that you should keep his name as Alex since he just seems like an Alex kind of guy.

"Alex" Sounds like a more fun loving comedic person, so maybe your character could be called Alexander, but his nickname is Alex? :-)