naming of names
Oct. 28th, 2007 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaI'm reading The Devil Wears Prada (and I'm only about halfway through, but so far I really like it - I haven't seen the movie) and I just encountered a character named "Ilana." And I can't help it: I always get a little weirded out, a little thrilled, and a little tossed out of the story, because that's my name, damn it, that is me, and what am I doing in this story?
At least in this book I seem to be a sympathetic character, unlike most of the others in the book (and if I turn out to be a supervillain, please don't tell me!). I was a little depressed when reading The Source because I got killed fairly early on. Ditto that really bad movie, The Arrival, and hey, that character was even actually named for me (although she was modeled on Susan Solomon), so I was totally justified in my over-identification. Then there was the Harry Potter fanfiction story I read (because it was a meme: search on your real name at ff.net) where I was a History of Magic teacher who'd gone to school with the Potter, Sr. generation, an animagus from the age of six, and a half-elf with waist-length azure hair and a nice set of dragonfly wings. (All at the same time.)
Do the rest of you get this weird jolt when you read your name in fiction (or hell, in a newspaper article)? I feel ridiculously proprietary about my name, maybe because I was thirteen years old before I met someone else who shared it (and she didn't spell it "right," so she sort of didn't count). I can't imagine what it would be like to be named Lisa or John or something like that.
At least in this book I seem to be a sympathetic character, unlike most of the others in the book (and if I turn out to be a supervillain, please don't tell me!). I was a little depressed when reading The Source because I got killed fairly early on. Ditto that really bad movie, The Arrival, and hey, that character was even actually named for me (although she was modeled on Susan Solomon), so I was totally justified in my over-identification. Then there was the Harry Potter fanfiction story I read (because it was a meme: search on your real name at ff.net) where I was a History of Magic teacher who'd gone to school with the Potter, Sr. generation, an animagus from the age of six, and a half-elf with waist-length azure hair and a nice set of dragonfly wings. (All at the same time.)
Do the rest of you get this weird jolt when you read your name in fiction (or hell, in a newspaper article)? I feel ridiculously proprietary about my name, maybe because I was thirteen years old before I met someone else who shared it (and she didn't spell it "right," so she sort of didn't count). I can't imagine what it would be like to be named Lisa or John or something like that.